Читать книгу Where Robot Mice And Robot Men Run Round In Robot Towns - Рэй Брэдбери, Ray Bradbury, Ray Bradbury Philip K. Dick Isaac Asimov - Страница 9

Though Queen be gone, the drones come back to hives;

I am the residue of all my daughters’ lives.

I keep their old loves here, I am the friend

Of all the lost, the sad, discarded, gone, made end.

Their husbands are now mine, their lovers keep

In touch with me, they telephone to weep

On loves that, soon as lost, now are my kin.

Somehow the old sins, shunted off, wind up my sin.

I take those loves to lunch. I buy them wine;

Although these boys-grown-men were never mine.

What is this thing in me which, dumb, demands

The keeping up of face, outstretch of hands?

Why must I tend their graveyard with chill stones,

Why say hello to those young bags of bones?

Those scuttled marriages gone sour or dead

Whose ruin runs my blood and cramps my head—

Why should I dine this mortuary gang,

Why not pay out Time’s rope and let them hang?

Because, because, well now, again because—

Mayhap I drown in male’s dread menopause,

And tend to see my face in these I dine

To drink too much of sad lust’s mortal wine.

Oh, women often cry they were sore used

But these boy/men were much the same abused;

If men shunt off the fainter sex with guile

Why, women, daggerless, slay with a smile.

What do these lovers hope to gain from me?

An echo of her flesh now found at tea,

The sounding of her voice but dimly heard

Her beauty ricocheted and drowned, absurd

In maze of old genetics yet there kept,

Some wakening of love that now is slept?

An echo of her voice in some mere phrase,

A flicker of her glance in old beast’s gaze?

They come to find the lamb in lion’s paws,

But something in my laugh now gives them cause

To order more and more and deeply drink,

Though Lovely’s not my name, I clearly think.

Ah, well, to stand for her is not a shame,

And if the echo pleases them, what blame?

Years back I saw an old love’s sire one day,

And round about his smile I saw the fey

Sad, far, lost echoing of one mad year

Which ravened me to frenzies and wild fear.

So if a father’s teeth can cage a cat,

Why here behind my eyes, beneath my hat,

A girl before her time waits to commence—

Young men, I have no heart to cry: Go hence!

So stay awhile and hear her voice in me;

But, please, no tears, no funeral salt at tea!