Читать книгу Saudade - Traci Brimhall - Страница 12

To Survive the Revolution

I, too, love the devil. He comes to my bed

all wrath and blessing and, wearing

my husband’s beard, whispers, Tell me who

you suspect. He fools me the same way every time,

but never punishes me the same way twice.

I don’t remember who I give him but he says

I have the instinct for red. Kiss red. Pleasure red.

Red of the ripe guaraná, of the jaguar’s eyes

when it stalks the village at night. Red as the child

I birthed that my husband buried without me.

The stump of flesh where the head should be,

red. Pierced side of a disappointing Christ, red.

A sinner needs her sin, and mine is beloved.

Mine returns with skin under his fingernails,

an ice cube on his tongue, and covers my face

with a hymnal. I never ask for a miracle,

only strength enough to bear his weight.

Each day, I hang laundry on the line, dodge

every shadow. Each night he crawls

through the window, I pay with a name.

The God I don’t believe in saves me anyway.