Northwood. Maryse Meijer

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      And the burn

      ORBIT

      I’ll speak just once, here,

      about my father.

      You were nothing like him:

      he was small, lean as a young tree

      and scared. He sat in corners

      and cleaned his glasses

      and tried to smile. He was almost never

      there. I mean in his head he wasn’t.

      He liked to see me

      with my pens, at the kitchen table:

      he said I would be

      a great artist

      though he was an insurance man

      who couldn’t name a single painting.

      He told me

      before he disappeared

      about the way he thought

      I should love.

      Don’t marry, he said,

      the one you like best.

      That’s the way to keep it, you know.

      Friction

      slows a thing down.

      Love him

      from a distance. And he’ll always

      be yours.

      I said, Yes Dad.

      I was ten and uncomprehending.

      A year later he left the house

      with his pipe and his favorite

      shirt

      and was found

      hanging in a garage

      two states away.

      I wonder whose heart

      he didn’t dare hold close.

      I mean,

      other than mine

      THE DANCE HALL

      I knew no one. A bar at the edge of the wood and music I

      hadn’t heard music in a week or seen a human face and

      there was yours, a miracle, selling tickets at the door; you

      took my hand and stamped it black. Jade eyes into mine

      and silver hair, older than any man I’d ever thought was

      beautiful, your beauty the first thing that hurt and I moved

      into the room solid with plaid shirts and me in my black

      dress so this is the country. I drank a cup of punch and ate

      almonds from a plastic bowl and you came and dug your

      hand next to mine wiped your salty fingers on your hip

      and looked down at my shirt unironed and crooked teeth

      agleam in the yellow light. I didn’t spend a minute saying

      no. You led me through the music, under your arm, pressed

      against your side, sweat slicking us wherever we touched. I

      spun and you stopped me and said Where are you

      staying. I saw the ring on your finger. The bottom dropping out.

      We talked on the stage steps, half hidden by a ficus. A cup of

      punch on your knee, jeans so tight at the thigh I could see

      how big you were. I blushed, touched it anyway. Not a sound

      from you. Watching my face, little smile, devastation: the

      music grew. Where’s your wife, I said, and you laughed: we

      would never be in public together again. I think I’m drunk, I

      said, moving my hand away. There’s no booze in that punch,

      darling, you said, and got me another glass.

      ASCALON

      St. George—

      helmet aslant, boot on the back.

      But where is victory?

      The staff never moves,

      hovers just above the tongue.

      He’ll wait forever for that hard kiss.

      I make a list: spear, spurs,

      silver, speed.

      Good luck, George says.

      And the dragon

      winks.

      FIRST

      Slapped between the sheets no ceremony you skinned me

      stockings to boots I hadn’t shaved I couldn’t spread my legs

      you got in anyway. No condom no question Did you want or

      Have you got just your hand against my face, a stroke before

      the slap. I was dry when you got inside. I hid from you. I

      didn’t come. Your skin in my mouth, bitter, delicious, you too

      close to see, what was touching me, your breath all around,

      the sound of something chasing us. It caught up.

      AMATEUR

      I drew my way through the year, having dropped out of

      everything. That ad for the cabin written for someone like

      me, who didn’t know what Get Away Cheap meant; you can’t

      get away. I went to live like a nun, pure, distractionless.

      One packed bag. I wanted to draw nature. Tired of drawing

      people. СКАЧАТЬ