I Am
Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman.
I am the red brand
On the shoulder of the condemned,
The gallows and the rope,
The ax and the block,
The whip and the cross.
I am the lion’s tooth
In the flesh of the gazelle.
In my veins I have
The blood of the slave trader.
Hangman,
I have deserved the hunger of the wolves.
My victims have left me nothing
But their deaths.