The Autobiography of Red

And how can regret be red

And how can regret be red

Desire is no light thing.

Desire is no light thing.

Cupi checa cupi checa
varmi in yana yacu
cupi checa cupi checa
apacheta runa sapan
cupi checa
in ancash puru
cupi chec
in sillutambo
cupi checa

That was also the day

he began his autobiography. In this work Geryon set down all inside things

particularly his own heroism

and early death much to the despair of the community. He coolly omitted

all outside things.

Geryon would climb back up to his bunk,

recover his pajama bottoms and lie on his back. He lay very straight

in the fantastic temperatures

of the red pulse as it sank away and he thought about the difference

between outside and inside.

Inside is mine, he thought.

No.

I hate you. I don’t care. I’ll tell Mom. Tell Mom what?

How nobody likes you at school.

Geryon paused. Facts are bigger in the dark. Sometimes then he would descend

to the other bunk

and let his brother do what he liked or else hang in between with his face pressed

into the edge of his own mattress,

cold toes balancing on the bed below.

A cat’s-eye

is outranked only by a steelie. And so they developed an economy of sex

for cat’s-eyes.

Pulling the stick makes my brother happy, thought Geryon. Don’t tell Mom,

said his brother.

Voyaging into the rotten ruby of the night became a contest of freedom

and bad logic.

Come on Geryon.

No.

You owe me

He saw the doorway

the house the night the world and

on the other side of the world somewhere Herakles laughing drinking getting

into a car and Geryon’s

whole body formed one arch of a cry—upcast to that custom, the human custom

of wrong love.