Читать книгу American Happiness - Jacqueline Trimble - Страница 11

THE DAY AFTER HER MOTHER DIED

She cannot wash the dish.

Even the bowl is too full of an egg yellow

she and her mother wore to a recital

in the park. If she looks closely

she can see lace forming

in the suds. Some thing, small and hard,

rises in her chest. She imagines

she can take a knife and with one stroke

divide herself.

“No such luck,” her mother would have said.

Instead, she settles for immobility,

and there she stands, her gown soaked

with dishwater, the bowl still

in her hand. Visitors come.

“Like clockwork,” her mother would have said.

Their hands are always full—

money, casseroles, prayers.

“We are sorry for your loss,” they say,

as if they cannot guess she is sorry too.

Between the visits, she waits

and waits for whatever comes next.

“A watched pot never boils,” her mother would have said.

Will someone, you perhaps,

step out of the shadows of this house,

seize this girl, and fold her in your arms,

especially some night when she lies sweating

afraid of the silence in the next room?