Читать книгу Saudade - Traci Brimhall - Страница 19

How I Lost Seven Faiths

I was given my first god as a child, a side-speared redeemer

who rose and walked after death but whose broken body

hung over his transubstantiated blood. When my daughter

vanished, I adopted a book of spells in a foreign tongue.

When my homophonic translations of curses didn’t give me

my daughter back or even a sign, I tried the rabbi who lived

in his tomb twenty-three hours a day and came out at noon

to eat hummingbird tongues served in mango compote

and honey. After my rabbinical miracle wore off I tried

divination by umbrellas and solar devotion but gave them up

for the euphoric theology of handling snakes. I lost faith in that,

too, when I woke to a constrictor choking on my big toe.

My undisciplined doubt didn’t sharpen my questions or make

the harem of angels stop haunting my godless mind. Better,

people said. It would get better. But I didn’t want better.