Northwood. Maryse Meijer
woman’s voice, laughing with you. I pressed against the
metal shelf, coat buttons tapping the cereal boxes below.
Who knew me here, I wondered, was I still a stranger, a
woman shivering against the Liptons? On the edge of the
wood it was especially dangerous: the one road with its strip
of shops, the bar, the dance hall, the gas station, the Feed
and Seed. Humans. I closed my eyes and heard your heavy
stride. The breeze your body makes so close to mine. You
didn’t slow. I had eight dollars in change and a hole in my
jeans and a fraction of a lover and I felt it, my poverty, how
little I knew, the limits
FREEDOM
Fourth of July barbecue balancing a plate of cake on my
knees my mother said Remember that time you went to live
in that old cabin? Laughing in fresh disbelief I never did
understand why you did that. The mosquitoes whined in my
ear, chewed their way through my ankles. I looked at a girl in
the next yard holding a sparkler against the sky; the smell of
gunpowder, the lethal taste of vodka lemonade. I didn’t say
a thing. Don’t you? my mother said. Remember? How weird
you were on the phone and then coming back to gain all
that weight? The cake slid off the plate, and the dogs lapped
it up. I was walking to the back door. How cold the empty
kitchen was. I was actively not remembering. There were no
parades, in the woods. No firecrackers no dogs no mothers
no refrigerator hum no beers on ice just my hair gathered
in his hands and my back bent in the firelight that was the
time he got in up to the wrist and I stopped breathing. A
stranger in the woods whistling The Star-Spangled Banner
as he passed the window we were both amazed there was
not a single drop of blood when it was over but you’re in the
kitchen you had too much to drink you were there and now
you’re here deep breath see? There’s your husband now,
asking you if there’s an extra jar of hot sauce somewhere
he can’t find it. You can find it, go outside with him, put the
jar on the grill, the sun slapping your face afresh, that girl
still wasting sparklers before it’s even dark the green light
spitting off into nothing and look, your mother has another
piece of cake, and a fork, and you’ll eat a bite of it, just a bite,
and you’ll say how good it is, because it is good, you made it
yourself.
HOOD
You glued together a broken dish. I sat sewing a hole
on your cuff. The rain
tapped down the chimney
smoked
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.