Читать книгу Mercy Wears a Red Dress - David Craig - Страница 15

felt like a 50s Catholic Church:

cool, dark, reverent—large painted statues,

wavering votive candles, a sliding

Confessional screen. And doilies!

They made her polished end tables, old lamps,

seem other—like something out of Joyce.

She loved us, in earnest, quietly,

like the swish of young cassocks in a nave.

Pillow mints in small bowls graced her table;

a fine, smooth ironed white cloth beneath.

Outside, a transistor radio pressed

to my ear on her front steps, I caught

Baltimore baseball: a game from another

city! It shocked me, the want in those

announcing voices, the crowd in the stands

as well; each needing Oriole success

as much as I needed that for my own team.

How many people there must be out there

in the world. What place could I have,

make for myself? Surely there were doctors

there, a ton of scientists. Even if I learned

enough, there was the question

of perseverance. At 7, what had I ever

seen through; what could I, always

so far from any goal, achieve?

It was like walking into a library

for the first time, seeing all those books.

I would never finish them.

As I went back inside, small boy, Grandma,

always, in memory, in a black dress: I asked

her to pray for me to the woman

framed in palms fronds, St. Therese.

I could see her fret. (She said she would.)

But the thing is, I don’t think

it’s different for anybody. We are all

ill-equipped, not ready for anything,

not ready to be heroes. We are still

on a porch or in a dark room, a quiet radio

or a family of voices pressed like mercy—

yes—into our ears.