NIGHT OF THE SCORPION
I remember the night my mother
was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours
of steady rain had driven him
to crawl beneath a sack of rice.
Parting with his poison — flash
of diabolic tail in the dark room —
he risked the rain again.
The peasants came like swarms of flies
and buzzed the name of God a hundred times
to paralyse the Evil One.
With candles and with lanterns
throwing giant scorpion shadows
on the mud-baked walls,
they searched for him: he was not found.
They clicked their tongues.
With every movement that the scorpion made
his poison moved in Mother’s blood, they said.
May he sit still, they said.
May the sins of your previous birth
be burned away tonight, they said.
May your suffering decrease
the misfortunes of your next birth, they said.
May the sum of evil
balanced in this unreal world
against the sum of good
become diminished by your pain.
They said, and they said, and they said.
The narrator’s father, a skeptic and rationalist,
trying every curse and blessing,
powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.
My mother twisted through and through,
groaning on a mat.
My father poured a little paraffin
upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.
I watched the flame feeding on my mother.
I watched the holy man perform his rites
to tame the poison with incantation.
After twenty hours
it lost its sting.
My mother only said:
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
and spared my children.
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Featured image credits to MythologyArt on Pixabay
