Читать книгу Strangers - Rob Taylor - Страница 10
Smoothing the Holy Surfaces
ОглавлениеOne winter, two a.m., his doctor’s
bad prescription setting in,
my dad went into shock—
my mom ten-minute-tumbled
his six-two, two-fifty tremble to the car,
the windshield scraped, ignition on,
before she caught a vision of my cherub’s face
tucked above my covers.
She scooped me up too quickly, swung
around towards the car, her ears
astounded by the sound as cherub-skull
thwacked doorframe. Then came the blood.
Then the startled screams from both our mouths,
the comic shuffle through sliding doors,
husband hooked on one arm,
jittering akimbo, son slung in the other,
an ornate fountain spurting purple
beneath fluorescent ER lights.
My head stitched up and all of us
in bed before sunrise, death’s
nearest pass (despite their fears)
had come as we careened our way downhill
in our clown car of misfortune,
my mother in the driver’s seat,
her right hand placing pressure on my skull,
her left gripped hard upon the wheel—
the story she now laughs about at parties
piling up around her like the snow
that fell that night, silently
and everywhere.