Читать книгу Book of Dog - Cleopatra Mathis - Страница 15

Their Chamber

She was thinking of his explanation

as a kind of Möbius strip, circling

endlessly, seamlessly reversing and twisting

to reveal the underside, on-going words. Lost in it,

she reached down into the limited

rough space between the bed and the wall,

and her hand came up skinned, the top layer

from knuckle to wrist peeled away.

This was part of her usual vigilance—

He would spill something, lose something, and she’d

rush to wipe away, find the missing,

like this automatic retrieving of his sock—

Beaded with blood, she examined

the wide scrape in addition

to sunspots, moles, the wormy down-under,

raised-vein look of her skin. Another thing on her body

to heal outside, while inside

running through her, the ribbon of his words:

no, then yes, yes, and no again. Oh what did he want

and how could she manage to wait

for the circling to stop—

how could she keep still?