Читать книгу The Quarry - Dan Lechay - Страница 15

Work

That winter, every morning

long before dawn, two lights shone

in the house. A passerby

(had anyone been passing

at that hour, in that weather)

might have thought something

was wrong—maybe a child

was sick? but no, it was only

my mother (downstairs in

the kitchen) and me (upstairs,

just getting out of bed, putting

on jeans and boots). When

I got downstairs, my mother

might still be cutting the half

grapefruit I ate each morning—

inserting the sharp, delicate

knife between rind and

flesh, peeling each segment

so I could eat it with a spoon…. Into

the night, then, after breakfast:

the scarf and gloves she’d made

me wear keeping me warm and dry,

I’d walk three blocks to the lamp-

lit corner where my bundle—

stiff, snow-crusted—waited,

slice the twine and stow the

hundred papers in my sack. War

in Egypt, hangings in Alabama—

I walked my route, unconscious

bearer of the world’s news.