Читать книгу Wicked Enchantment - Wanda Coleman - Страница 11

1.

i drip blood

on my way to and from work

i drip blood

down the aisles while shopping at the supermarket

i drip blood

standing in line at the bank

filling my tank at the gas station

visiting my man in prison

buying money orders at the post office

driving the kids to school

walking to bed at night

i drip blood

an occasional transfusion arrives in the mail

or i find plasma in the streets

an occasional vampire flashes my way

but they don’t take much

my enemy is the wolf

who eats even the mind

the wolf will come for me sooner or later

i know this

the wolf makes no sexual distinctions

i am the right color

he has a fetish for black meat and

frequently hunts with his mate along side him

he follows my trail of blood

i drip blood for hours

go to the bathroom and apply bandages

i’ve bled enough

it’s my monthly bleeding of poison

getting it out of my system

watching it as it flows from the

open sore of my body into the toilet stool

making a red ring

so pretty

flushing it away—red swirls

a precious painful price i pay

my man cannot protect me

the wolf has devoured most of my friends

i watched them die horribly

saw the

raw hunks of meat skin bone

swallowed

watched as full, the wolf crept away

to sleep

2.

the wolf has a beautiful coat

it is white and shimmers in moonlight/a coat of diamonds

his jaws are power

teeth sharp as guns glisten against his red tongue

down around his feet the fur is dirty with the caked blood of my friends

i smile

i never thought it would come to this

scratching

scratching at my door

scratching to get in

howls howls howls

my children are afraid

i send them to hide in the bedroom

scratch scratch scratch

the door strains

howl howl howl

cries of my children “mama! mama! who is it?”

i am ready

—armed with my spear inherited from my father as he

from his mother (who was psychic) as she from her father

(who was a runaway slave) as he from his mother (who

married the tribal witch doctor)—me—african warrior

imprisoned inside my female form

determined

i open the door

a snarl

he lunges

the spear

against his head

he falls back

to prepare for second siege

i wait

the door will not close

i do not see the wolf

my children scream

i wait

look down

am wounded

drip blood

cannot move

or apply bandages

must wait

wolf howls and the roar of police sirens