In India the housewives kill themselves:
a crop of twenty thousand every year.
Some eat narcotics off their medicine shelves;
some hang themselves. Some, long past feeling fear,
self-immolate. Many are children still,
whose nightmares have become their daily life.
They hope to wake; they dream that if they kill
the nightmare self, they’ll wake as no one’s wife
but as young girls again: innocent feet
escaping from the bedsheets, sleepy eyes
adjusting to the light of dawn, the heat
of India when the sun has yet to rise.
—Cara Valle
You have a decision to make: double or nothing.
For this week only, a generous supporter has offered to fully match all new and increased donations to First Things up to $60,000.
In other words, your gift of $50 unlocks $100 for First Things, your gift of $100 unlocks $200, and so on, up to a total of $120,000. But if you don’t give, nothing.
So what will it be, dear reader: double, or nothing?
Make your year-end gift go twice as far for First Things by giving now.
