Читать книгу Painstaker - Jeffrey Galbraith - Страница 8

Flames darken cans of tin,

half burn the labels, pop

gristle off the chicken bones.

I watch a milk jug melt

into a twisting face.

The city won’t come out

this far. We farm beyond

the line where garbage trucks

turn back, so we dug a hole

behind the house to burn

the trash, or maybe the dark

sat gaping there before

we came. Who knows who first

crouched over a fresh-dug

pit to hide his shame. When

my father burned his porn,

I wasn’t meant to see

the photos only half-burned,

like young, green saplings on

the smoking pyre. My snooping

is what put them there

and how I knew to rescue them.

Next day, I carried myself

full of secret life to school.