Lot's wife - Iryna Tsilyk

“There’s nothing in this country,” Lot’s wife says
impetuously and with disdain. “But it’s true. What can you get here?”
The soup’s boiling, someone else’s child is sleeping (for twenty zloty an hour),
while Lot drives back cars from Holland to sell.
She’s done it all – picked strawberries, looked after an old frau
in that city where you only die in your own bed,
where there are too many century-old rules,
where all the gargoyles on the cathedrals are well fed.
Above all don’t look back, don’t go back no matter what.
Well, maybe, only to others’ rooms. Take off your shoes and clothes,
stand under a hot shower for a whole eternity and always
fall asleep only after the sky turns beige.
Above all teach your daughter. Because there’s nothing here.
Only are mornings at home so sonorous and evenings so quiet…
She’ll suddenly shout something about God,
when the customs officer again rummages through all her things.
Lot left, mother is sick… She stands. She goes into St. Peter and Paul’s,
lights a candle. The small flame scrapes her cold, rough palms.
She’s sure that somehow somewhere she must have slipped up.
For why else would her cheeks now be so salty?

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Iryna Tsilyk (born 1982) Ukraine
Translated by Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella
Source: Lyrikline