This poem is taken from PN Review 275, Volume 50 Number 3, January - February 2024.

Conversations with God

Darío Jaramillo
translated by Richard Gwyn

1
The first time that God spoke to me, He was disguised as a snake.
It was hard to accept that someone like God should turn up in such
        a surprising form, but that’s what He’s like, always clever, clever
        like a snake, yes, exactly like a snake.
What’s more, there’s the precedent: the devil came to Eve disguised as
        a serpent. No one would expect God to use the same trick.
        That’s exactly why He used it. It was the best kind of deception.
That day was just a sort of test. He told me He was God. I believed Him
        and in that consisted the proof, that I believed Him. If I had doubted Him,
        He would never have spoken to me again. But I believed Him.
He told me He was the Everlasting Father. That He had created the world
        and controlled almost everything. Almost. But He didn’t clarify what things
        He doesn’t control.
I think He didn’t explain this to me for dramatic effect. He left me in suspense.
I am still in suspense.
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