Читать книгу Parallax - Maureen Mulhern - Страница 7

Skating

Over Sinoway’s pond the snag of skates

Dragged rough lines across the crust.

I imagined crayfish in hibernation,

Their pewter spines curled in frozen viscous

Sacs and bubbles while hockey pucks

Sent shadows over them like tiny spheres

Whizzing out of orbit. I spun crookedly,

Snow catching on my eyelashes

As I stumbled, pulled by a mottled glow

Of fish below the ice, their opaque,

Greenish skin as fine as rice paper, mouths

Stuck in perpetual loops. I circled

And etched cuneiform runes, scrambled

Messages to wood-hued owls who took

Refuge in Sinoway’s barn. (Their tight,

oval chests beneath the feathers, cold.) Cider

Fermented in enormous vats and apples

All summer long waited listlessly like

People in bus stations. But the winter

Was an Appaloosa, bruised white and grey,

Its mane, cream turning pale against the sky.

At night, I dreamed of clear, red planets

Eclipsing thinner disks, shifting

Like ocular cells on all sides; featureless

Faces bobbed for eye space while I clung

To the basket of a hot-air balloon

And felt the world obliquely tip away, sliding

Further and further to where I am now.