2

In the mental wards
the worse ones are the nuns
more violent
than hypodermic needles
than fever and madness
the nun is a quiet gorgon.
In the mental wards
when I cry the nun laughs.
I could say the nun
is neither evil nor good
she simply hates
all that moves
all that lives
all that has a heartbeat
all that is
not her dead God.

Poem by Raúl Gómez Jattin

Translated by Jaime Manrique and Dean Kostos
Published in BOMB Magazine