Читать книгу By the Numbers - James Richardson - Страница 23

Echo

And since she could only say back what she heard,

she had to listen for what she needed to say.

She haunted the edges of schoolyards first. Not it.

Lovers’ lanes: hopeless. Cell phones seemed promising,

but really. She started reading novels

to put herself in the way of secret lives. It was the old story,

speed that was made to be followed, not repeated:

she remembered the ends of sentences, of sentences.

Why hasn’t anyone said…? she thought, but couldn’t say it.

What I want is… lilies in time-lapse bloomed, faces, explosions,

which she tried repeating. Stares, curious at least.

And if it had never in all history been uttered

would accident help her? She tried mishearing

flags snapping in darkness, the rumble of subways,

misquoting the birds even, two-wit, twang-a-wire, sorry-sorry.

Not quite, but there was something deep within them:

hadn’t it been there at the world’s beginning,

a silence? Yes, she could hear it still. It was like,

like a dumbstruck boy who looked at her as blankly

as if she were a pool, or he was, it was a question

spreading out larger and smoother, time itself,

to which she could hardly wait to hear her answer.