Читать книгу Blood Orbits - Ger Killeen - Страница 19

3. Frimaire

You are received, shown

in out of the night air.

Drawing room jammed with family

things: the walls hard-finished a shy blue,

the woodwork, blue, a rich carpet

of yellows, greens and blues in tendrils looping

through golden spaces, a large, round

mahogony table in the center of the room,

with a blue cloth on it, with a thin layer

of books in smart bindings, a tea-colored leather

sofa against one wall, against another

a row of four black walnut chairs

with horsehair seats, hung on a third,

between the street windows, a gilt mirror,

and, beneath, a black marble-topped

console table; also, a triangular stand

for china shepherdesses and farm animals;

also, on the walls, various prints

including peasants praying the Angelus,

and a still-life with lemons; a piano

strewn with sheet music for Field’s Nocturnes,

a very tall clock from which on

the quarter hour issues an arresting

set of chimes and a flat figure

of Orpheus chasing a flat figure of Eurydice,

an enormous chandelier,

heavy ochre curtains and an open

fireplace with a white marble mantlepiece

against the chill.

A sumptuous

light mitres each and every

object nouns have shrivelled to a shadow of.

You, however, hypocrite voyeur,

are a spectral inconvenience in

the domestic schedule, (one alarming sickle

of the open-ended parentheses

between dinner-time and bedtime. The entire

ménage is worried for the safety

of the children because every sentence

addressed to you you repeat back

several times with very different

intonations, and your almost grimy

calling-card is hand-written with

milk me sugar in greenish ink.

That could spell the end

of your future presence

in the better houses.