Читать книгу Saudade - Traci Brimhall - Страница 18

After the Plantation Fire

We buried the bodies and danced — we had to.

Beneath the sagging porch, generators roared,

mosquitoes sated themselves on wild dogs, boats

approaching on the river loaded with soldiers

killed their engines. We told them the fire had nothing

to do with the revolution. I’ve made the choice

between brushing flies from a child’s eyes or digging

a grave deeper. It’s easier than you’d think. So what

if I knew who he was when he sidled close —

hat tilted back, caipirinha in his hand — and matched

his hips with mine? I toyed with his buttons, felt scars

through his shirt. I didn’t tell him where our daughter

had gone or what my husband had done. He kissed

the blood blisters on my fingertips and never asked

how I got them. That’s not why he’d come.

When soldiers broke the lights and the musicians’ arms,

I brought him to the burned plantation, hid his face beneath

my skirt and leaned against a rubber tree — still alive

and leaking sap. Somewhere in the new dark, a man

in a uniform cut off another man’s tongue and ordered him

to sing. Wind pushed the flames closer to heaven.