Читать книгу The Dream of Reason - Jenny George - Страница 13

Death of a Child

1

This is how a child dies:

His breath

curdles. His hands

soften, apricots

heavy on their branches.

I can’t explain it.

I can’t explain it.

On the walk back to the car

even the stones in the yards

are burning. Far overhead

in the dead orchard of space

a star explodes

and then collapses

into a black door.

This is the afterlife, but

I’m not dead. I’m just

here in this field.

2

It made a boy-shaped hole

and filled—

the way a crushed hand fills

suddenly up

with new pain,

or a well put down

taps the liquid silt.

The center pours

toward the surface.

Now the hand is given

to the earth.

The mouth draws up

clay

and drinks.

3

There’s something uneasy in the field.

A wake. A ripple in the cloth.

We see the green corn moving

but not the thing that moves it.

The atoms of our bodies turn

bright gold and silky. Aimed

at death, we live. We keep on

doing this. Night unfolds helplessly

into day. Beyond the field are more

fields and through them, too—

this current. What is it? Where

is it going? Did you see it? Can you

catch it? Can you kill it? Can you hold

it still? Can you hold it still forever?

4

The conductor’s baton hovers

for a moment in the alert