Читать книгу Undoing Hours - Selina Boan - Страница 8

i drown a rat in the kitchen sink tie back my hair and whisper sorry.

cassie on the plastic stool repeats the rat’s good life, hands on her knees

like we share the same body, hands that pinch and squirm.

cassie on the plastic stool is a lemon wedge,

soured and nervous, she repeats the rat’s good life.

i tell her, when i was a girl, i was given the tail of a baby squirrel by my dad.

first animal he ever shot, placed in a blue box under my bed.

for years, i slept over his story of a BB gun, a branch and his own dad barking to shoot.

for years, my roommates and i have been trying to catch the rat party

that surrounds our lives, the after-sound of heartbreaks and boiling water

through the drain of the tub. you can hear their teeth at night,

a loud shadow we brush our mouths to. we spit and bleed and polish.

cassie and i eat breakfast standing up. try to bleach

the death out of our walls, the brass vents. we chew cereal and our disbelief

like muscle on a plate, the rat is an exhausted blade,

a kneecap dislocating from soft tissue.

this morning, a light reflective road

disappearing behind us. i want to carry the rat all day

in the yellow no-frills funeral shopping bag

i want to take her to the grocery store and to the library to pick up a book,

suddenly certain she can read, the weight of her body swinging

so close to mine.