Читать книгу The Bad Wife Handbook - Rachel Zucker - Страница 31

Squirrel in a Palm Tree

up, out of the sentry box over the parapet, bastion, rampart, breastwork

[don’t think “I have left them…”]

draw and look, lift—erase, draw and lift and lift and lift

an erasable slate

the velum top sheet takes away

[“left them”]

up, over the country

the edge of coast and further out the clouds like stones in deep waters

a river delving the lush green

marsh an amorphous rum babba, soaked and spongy

grasses and cattails misstate the surface

the cabin has the sharp inhale of opening a gift

Ø

high ceiling (blue) and pink and gray striped walls shape me

make a naked Alice in the bath

big and tiny

here and far away

a wonder the body fits

so mythic is the mother-absentia

tundra of abandon

I suffer the gift, silence,

for once, nothing happening

none using my name to mean anything

Ø

bed as wide as it is long

the night inhuman calm

the outlets and picture frames and decorative plates are safe

the bathtub and mirror and doors and linens

I am as light as negligee

have not my army’s entourage

Ø

on Sunday I will step back into the living room littered with toys

the two boys happy/shy/mad to see me

but like I dawdled in the shower

like I never was anywhere but ready to answer

where is my?

can’t find the…

look here, the light through the sycamores and dense magnolias

live oaks tasked with spanish moss

a veranda you reach through a twelve-foot window