Читать книгу Wilder - Claire Wahmanholm - Страница 11

AFTERSKY

The blue noonday sky, cloudless, has lost its old look of immensity

LEWIS THOMAS

Note: there has been some speculation about the state of the sky—

whether it is an infinite mouth dragging its gasp across us

or whether it is a tent

or whether it is there at all.

When it is a mouth, we shoot its white teeth down.

When it is a tent, we slit its skin to let in the rain.

When it is not there at all, we rank the shades of nothing according to their hue:

alice blue

iris blue

a blue of such majesty it can’t be looked at

pale blue

a vast and uniform heaven

ultramarine

falling through the ocean

falling asleep

this eve of blackness

neat, delicate, deep black

the black dilated iris

panic

the long black trail

absolutely black and appalling

When the sky is not there at all, we pound stakes through our shoes

to keep us close to the ground.

We tarp our windows so we are not tempted

to smash the glass and let the aftersky suck us outward

like marrow from the bones of our houses.

Black at noon, black in the afternoon.

Black hail falls from somewhere and melts invisibly in the yard.

The grass fattens with alien dew.

the dark

is everywhere

is

a confusion . We

are

profoundly

lonely a reed

In the

Sea