Читать книгу Welcome to Sonnetville, New Jersey - Craig Morgan Teicher - Страница 9

I am a father now, an unprecedented thing

I never was before and have always been,

preparing, preparing since I was born a father’s son,

and not a mother’s daughter. Plus I married a daughter’s

mother, little did I know. But how could I?

It had only been a moment since I arrived—

I was barely conceived on one of time’s

unremembered nights, and suddenly I woke

with a child crying in each ear, these years

like the coils of a patient snake that has lovingly

nibbled and swallowed me countlessly.

I am diminished to a great height, the ceiling

of the world tickling the tips of my lost hairs.

I loom like the moon over two baby baboons,

my helpless, hopeful hobbits, one for each

leaden eye. I might be just like my father’s

father for all I know. I could be the bearer

of my mother’s father’s nose, and look

what I’ve done with it, seat of my driving glasses.

I’m the lover, quietly, furtively, of the bearer

of my daughter and son—the fever of our sex

shakes the house we uphold, but let’s not wake

the children here or next door or next door to that.

Or let’s wake them up and play with them now

while no one’s looking, for joy is always

our secret, the secret of this hurried, harried life

without horses. I sleep when I can, and I can’t die.

I have never been as mortal as now. I bend low,

my back aching and breaking under grateful weight.

No matter—I’ll grow another. I have my children

to thank for my bending body, which is born

a hundred times each day, dying every breath.