Psalms. Joy Ladin

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СКАЧАТЬ come closer.

      I smell you on my clothes, my books,

      The toys my children scatter,

      My two or three private parts

      Devoted solely

      To radiating pain, my organs

      Of need and pleasure. Why do you bother

      To provoke this terror

      In something small and unimportant

      That asks nothing

      But to be allowed to vanish?

      Why do you bother with us at all

      When your being is bounded

      By no conditions

      But absolute freedom

      And absolute distance

      From the bits of bone and truth

      That come closer and closer to freezing

      The closer we come

      To you?

      3

      The footsteps of the Lord

      In the garden. I know

      The drill: I pull on my skin

      And try to act human,

      Knowing you’ve already noticed

      The difference between the creature I am

      And the creature you thought

      You were breathing yourself into

      On the sixth day, at evening. I know

      You will clothe my nakedness, tender

      But also disappointed

      That I need to feel something

      Other than naked

      When nakedness is the image

      In which I was created, the image

      I see through your see-through robe

      Of shy young stars

      That sing very quietly

      So as not to drown

      Your image singing inside them.

      You want me to see you

      Picking your way

      Through the garden of my body.

      You try so hard

      To be seen. I try so hard not to be

      One of your hopes

      Staring hungrily through the leaves.

      I talk to you incessantly

      But you can count on the fingers

      Of the hand you don’t have

      The times I’ve heard you answer. Occasionally

      I’m blinded

      By your beauty. One blink

      And the reassuring

      Lids of life

      Close over you again. Now

      I have no life to lid

      The terrifying continent of your longing

      To meet a gaze

      That meets your gaze

      Naked and unashamed, an image of you

      That can stand the sight

      Of the image it was made in.

      4

      You want it both ways, to be the sun

      And the clouds that smother it, the heart

      And the heart that breaks it, meaningless suffering

      And the truth

      That redeems it. Nice work

      If you can get it

      But you won’t get it

      From me. You offer yourself

      Like an apple reddening

      Within my reach, dangling

      On the lowest branch, a generous

      Hermeneutical fragrance

      Drenching every event, trivial and tragic,

      In eau d’significance. After all,

      What choice do I have? Your angels

      Torched the trees

      Of life and knowledge,

      Although I’ve made a decent living

      Battening

      On their ashes. You too

      Have a taste for ashes. Of ash. Of something

      Burned a long time ago

      And still burning

      Somewhere close to my mouth, the smoke of you

      Clogging my nostrils,

      A cry for help

      I’ve become too bored

      To notice. You woo me with the fruit

      Of your intimacy, infinity thick

      As star-sparked honey, fine-toothed combs

      Of forgiveness, the barely-remembered

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