Читать книгу Terrible Blooms - Melissa Stein - Страница 19

Flower

The ruler left a welted stripe;

the hand and belt, raised letters

I could read. My desk held

parchment, paint, and mucilage,

its lid a face for stenciling—

how ink would fill the ridge compressed

in wood—those cells—compressed

for good—my own, what I was beaten for.

I never learned to play the violin.

I never learned what I was beaten for.

At Easter brushing watercolor on crayon—

what soaked into the egg’s white skin

and what resisted—beading there—

It’s possible to envy wax.

Sometimes I drew around the mark.

The red would fade, the blue would stay.

Blue shape, blue flower

yellow took. Then everything went in.