Читать книгу Saudade - Traci Brimhall - Страница 16

A Camera Crew Films a Telenovela Based on the Miracles at Puraquequara

I rehearse my lines as I palm a maracujá to test its tenderness

and say, Não, Comandante, and, More rum, cadela. Day in, day out,

I eat the same fried bread and ripe plantains, wash the same sheets,

keep saving the saved, the baptized rising from the river,

awed and dripping, living their scripts. Though my memory

of the execution differs I stand on my mark and clap.

I try to recall my insincere lamentations in the funeral parade.

An extra in my own story and envious of the ingenue’s unmuddied

shoes and air-conditioned hotel room, I say, Ajudar, ajudar,

and cry on cue. Between scenes an actor shares imported cigars

with the prostitute playing me. When cameras roll, he bites

her nipples with his prosthetic teeth, and my milk lets down.

Sweet white ache. After the mayor hangs himself and bequeaths

his second-best bed to his horse, I write romantic obituaries

and send his wife signed photographs of myself. I make love

to avoid sweeping the sidewalk, to practice geometry, to satisfy

the voyeur and come with uncertain pleasure. Only when the film crew

leaves do the dead reappear, drinking, dancing, whipping each other

with TV antennas. They burn with more heat than light.

Pictures from that night reveal a black horse dragging a priest

through paradise, the crowd weeping, at last, with happiness.