(Following God’s decision to save the people of Nineveh)

O— do not save them—

Their shame is loveless-- it is

Only so you will spare them.

 

It grows like this gourd,

Swelling with a tasteless pulp

And dies after a day

 

while sack-cloth sores sink

beneath a wafer thickness

of perfect skin.

 

Be vengeful— they will only sin

again. I never ran twice…

 

But pity me: the one whose anger

has digested their bones.

 

I would my body were splinters,

scourged by this bloodshot wind,

That I would burst to dust

 

with the force of the act saved

for such a city.