THE LORD SYMPATHIZES WITH OUTSIDERS

I looked out at the sea and understood everything—

for three days I had been wandering up and down the empty shore

walking out onto the wetlands where raindrops hung,

and fell, you know, into these wetlands, and swam

there like fish, for three days I saw the golden light of diners, motels,

and harbor eateries packed with workers in

white T-shirts, who drowned in alcohol as their sweet saliva

colored their liquor pink,

this is what I think—

I think, Jesus was a red, he made

all this up on purpose, so you would suffer,

as you run into all the mistakes in his blueprints,

he seems to be saying on purpose—

look, he says to you,

here is your heart, here is her heart, do you hear how they beat?

you’re alive, as long as you listen to all the sounds and movements deep under your

skin,

you’re alive, as long as you see what is happening there—

inside of things or objects rising up beneath the surface.

And then I thought, you know—all these bicycles in the sand,

and all these preachers on lifeguard towers—

when you wade far out into the water and preach to all

the jellyfish and flying fish, lecturing them, as they

patiently swim around you, explaining

to them the dimmest and most terrifying entries in your

dictionary, telling them—

that Jesus was a red, with all his leftist tricks

like walking on water, all his apostles—

engineers from the local tech, who gathered at the factory

for their last supper, all those golden threads in your sweater

and scabs on your knees,

Jesus was definitely red, he counted on

the communist principles of bird flight,

and all the rest so that you would suffer,

listening to the heartbeat of trees and bicycles,

to the conversation of foremen, whose tongues are washed

down with cool liquor, like new chrome.

The green grass, which will grow on these foundations,

the green grass which no one knows yet, the green

grass, around which the heavens spin,

grass—green and damp is the reason for

everything;

this girl has such narrow veins that sometimes

her blood can’t push through them,

can you hear her heart in the winter, when skin dries like a river?

her heart beats slower now,

this means that she is either asleep

or simply very calm.

Translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps