Читать книгу Grace, Fallen from - Marianne Boruch - Страница 17

I can be nice. I can put my body

flat, down straight, and pull

sleep from somewhere deep

in the brain, that no-weather

thing, that blank page-

after-page thing. I can be

nice enough and say nothing, drift

to the cool room under

a blanket, under all the things

I have to do. Count them. Count

forward or backward: glue

broken things, fill the feeder,

work for a living, make supper, go

anxious unto guilty unto

anxious, full circle. I can love

humankind. I can do that.

I can close my eyes on the bright

windows my neighbors have

framing their big TVs. I can understand.

I can be nice when others decide, steeling

myself, but not as well as my tiny

grandmother did, the tallest person

in the room for a moment. I can, mostly,

drive past Burger King, its Good Luck

Staci (oh, Stacy with an i!) We Miss You!

on whatever the marquee’s

called now, be touched and sweetened

or nice enough not to notice. And bite

my tongue. Good doggy. Be nice now, be

nice. I can sacrifice muscle

and bone to sit longer, showing

interest (show interest, my mother warned

as we walked through any really large

set of doors). I know German has

a word, nett, for nice. I can put myself

in that net, drop down so close

to what is underwater

that the fish know me as small,

silent, as sleek and shiny as

they happen to be. And so

weightless there, blue

beyond thought. One would hardly

guess how nice it is, those fish

suspended next to me, their mouths

opening and closing.