Читать книгу blud - Rachel McKibbens - Страница 13

leverage

Before the burglar

raped my grandmother

he pushed her down

a flight of stairs.

Ankle turned, hip unhitched.

There was no getting up, no

hope for flight. She told me that while he

was on top of her, she stared up

at the clock from the kitchen floor.

Watched each minute crawl by

like a half-smashed bug,

imagining the school bus

emptying her sons into the yard.

Thought of the sandwiches

she had no time to make.

As the man pulled his pants up,

she noticed the tattoo on his

forearm. MOTHER framed

by a heart. My sons will be home

soon, she explained.

How many?

Five.

What she told me next

I could never understand,

not until I’d lived long enough

in this temporary body,

not until I had five children

of my own, how, when the man

held out his hand, she took it.

Neither of them speaking as she

leaned all her weight onto her one