Шерон Олдс. Дьявол говорит

Satan Says 

I am locked in a little cedar box 
with a picture of shepherds pasted onto 
the central panel between carvings. 
The box stands on curved legs. 
It has a gold, heart-shaped lock and no key. 
I am trying to write my way out of the 
closed box redolent of cedar. 
Satan comes to me in the locked box 
and says, I'll get you out. 
Say My father is a shit. 
I say my father is a shit and Satan laughs 
and says, It's opening. 
Say your mother is a pimp. 
My mother's a pimp. 
Something opens and breaks when I say that. 
My spine uncurls in the cedar box 
like the pink back of the ballerina pin 
with a ruby eye, resting beside me 
on satin in the cedar box. 
Say shit, say death, say fuck the father, 
Satan says, down my ear. 
The pain of the locked past buzzes 
in the child's box on her bureau, 
under the terrible round pond eye 
etched around with roses, 
where self-loathing gazed at sorrow. 
Shit. Death. Fuck the father. 
something opens. 
Satan says Don't you feel a lot better?
Light seems to break on the delicate 
edelweiss pin, carved in two colors 
of wood. 
I love him too, you know, I say to Satan 
dark in the locked box. 
I love them but I'm trying to say what 
happened to us in the lost past. 
Of course, he says and smiles, of course. 
Now say: torture. 
I see, through blackness soaked in cedar, 
the edge of a large hinge open. 
Say: the father's cock, the mother's cunt, 
says Satan, I'll get you out. 
The angle of the hinge widens until I see 
the outlines of the time before I was, 
when I say the magic words, Cock, Cunt, 
Satan softly says, Come out. 
But the air around the opening is heavy 
and thick as hot smoke. 
Come in, he says, and I feel his voice 
breathing from the opening. 
The exit is through Satan's mouth. 
Come in the mouth, he says, you're there 
already, and the huge hinge begins to close. 
Oh no, I loved them too, I brace my body 
tight in the cedar house. 
Satan sucks himself out the keyhole. 
I'm left locked in the bed, he seals 
the heart-shaped lock with the wax 
of his tongue. 
It's your coffin now,Satan says. 
I hardly hear;
I am warming my cold hands 
at the dancer's ruby eye the fire,
the suddenly discovered knowledge 
of love.