Читать книгу Broom Broom - Brecken Hancock - Страница 16

Navy blue in the hall.

Five and five doors

and blue navy rising,

rising under the underslots.

Five and five doors framing ten rooms,

each with a woman in bed,

each with a woman sleeping.

Each with a yawning

window, each with a lamp, doused.

Across from each, a mirror.

•

The navy’s loud as wheezing. Ah aha.

Mountains climb beyond the window.

Ten and ten arms circling pillows,

not other bodies in their beds.

Ten and ten hands frigid with sweat.

Oceans rime beyond the window.

Women solo, tucked into themselves.

Rooms drenched in exhales.

The navy sounds, their breasts.

On thermals, birds beyond windows.

•

A pug scrubs himself along carpet.

Room to room he marks

spurts of darkness

under each underslot.

Women’s cheeks pillow-creased,

ten women ferning themselves.

Mouths awe

to navy tongues.

•

Navy blue thick in the hall

as navy grackles, clotting. They hoist

their wings, gaw and fuffle

against each other, thick as piss

flooding under underslots.

The doors are slick with their cud and shit,

their tide under underslots.

•

We women now bathing.

Off the hall, five and five knobs

to ten rooms, each with a woman in tub.

Ten women nailing mosquito bites,

scrubbing resin under ten and ten feet.

We sink into upside-down longing,

shave navy plumes off mounds.

The baths grow cold. We rise.

Our bodies rise to face mirrors.

Five and five mirrors,

twenty women facing ourselves.

Five and five mirrors now,

twenty women facing ourselves.

And through the walls

we face each other.

And through the walls

our backs to each other.

Aha. And in the mirror

twenty women. Me?