Читать книгу Kindest Regards - Ted Kooser - Страница 37

Walking at Noon near the Burlington Depot in Lincoln, Nebraska

To the memory of James Wright

On the rat-gray dock

of the candy factory,

workers in caps and aprons

as white as divinity

sit on their heels and smoke

in the warm spring sunlight

thick with butterscotch.

In the next block down,

outside a warehouse,

its big doors rolled and bolted

over the dusty hush

of pyramids of cartons,

two pickets in lettered vests

call back and forth, their voices

a clatter of echoes.

A girl sits in her car,

an old tan Oldsmobile

broken down over its tires,

and plays the radio.

On the grille of a semi

smelling of heat and distance,

one tattered butterfly.

And an empty grocery cart

from Safeway, miles from here,

leans into its reflection

in a blackened window, a little

piano recital of chrome

for someone to whom all things

were full of sadness.