Читать книгу Ash and Embers - James A. Zoller - Страница 14

By the end he addressed envelopes from edge

to edge, at a forward slant precisely suited

to the matronly school mistress who had disciplined

his boyishness, who watched from over his shoulder –

like a predator – his orphaned hand.

The perfect loops and paralleled spikes

of my grandfather’s textbook cursive held

for eighty years – growing large as if bold-

ness were a remedy for failing eyes, a trembling pen,

a dangerously erratic heart.

He varied not a whit – even in the grip

of his last illness – as if, still, to please her

whose stern attentions were as close as he

might ever imagine to a mother’s.