Читать книгу The Infinitesimals - Laura Kasischke - Страница 15

The Invisible Passenger

Between row 12 and row 14, there

are, on this plane, no seats. This

engineering feat of

gravity and wings, which

flies on superstition, irrationality. The calm

has been printed on my ticket:

Doe and fawn

in a grove below us, her

soul crawling in and out of my clothes.

While, in a roofless theater, a magic act

is performed for children

by an invisible man.

Like the mess

of a cake that I once

baked for my father—

damp, awful, crumbling layers.

Soggy church bell on a plate.

And my father’s dentures, lost

(all his teeth

pulled out

as a young man

by a military dentist im-

patient to send him

on his way), and

my father’s smile anyway.