Читать книгу No Gathering In of this Incense - Mark Rhoads - Страница 8

The way my father grips those two dead squirrels

by their tails and how his left hand extends

to the barrel-end of a rifle, butt at his feet; and those

dungarees and the work shirt he is wearing, the way

he has rolled up his sleeves; and my mother,

how she stands next to my father in tailored slacks

and a waste-length sweater; and the way that squirrel

hangs from her left hand, held by her thumb

and first two fingers; even how she tucks her thumb

in under the fingers of her right hand

as it hangs at her side; and how young they look,

clowning around in front of this old cabin;

and how they both smile, draws me as the icon

of a saint draws the devout to consider the origins

of a virtue. Daily I search those eyes, the windows

through which I see their future, my past, all at once.