Читать книгу Strangers - Rob Taylor - Страница 11
That Scar
ОглавлениеFourteen, with hollow, aching limbs
I fed my fingers past empty serving bowls
and plucked a cube of melon from my mother’s plate,
her fork cascading down to catch
my knuckle mid-retreat.
Had I been ten or twenty,
had my father been alive,
some innocence or indifference
would have gotten in the way
(civility and all its cobbled barricades).
Instead, that day, she dug down
on the clenched crown of my fist
until the tines began to puddle blood
and our brunch guests’ laughter
clotted to a glottal stop.
Our laughter lasted on—
bewildered, joyful, barely seamed
with spite—though I let go.
Eventually I must have
let the damn thing go.