缪斯18

Years ago I heard of a woman who lived alone and took her life
By shutting herself inside her chest freezer
But only after she had spent weeks
Thawing, cooking and eating all the frozen food in there
直到空了
I imagine a quiet sense of responsibility
Compelling her to tape a brief explanatory note to the lid
在爬进去之前
So that someone will realize they need to call 9-1-1
And let 9-1-1 open the freezer
Not that it’s a sirens-and-flashers type of emergency
或者任何紧急情况
只是模糊的一瞥
Of a soul’s unaccountable plumage

I’ve never forgotten this and I have questions about it
这个问题永远不会得到回答
But what I understand perfectly
Is the dignity in not allowing anything
任何东西
浪费掉
除了生活
When only futility looks back at you
From the chilly white interior
And purpose can no longer be measured out
In turkey casserole portions
金枪鱼面条的惊喜

到达然后离开.  再来一次.
I do know why, not where or when.

These winds will stop me day and night.
There is no "later" when they do not return,
No time or state beyond their reach.

我不能拒绝他们通过
假装忘记

她走了.


These winds do not care that I am sad.
          they do not care what I think or say.
          they will not be swayed nor bargained with,
          也不明白.         
          they come and go as they see fit.
          they will not cease or be controlled.

Yet when I do not fear or serve them, 
These winds of grief can be endured.
然后我注意到:

他们并不总是抱着我.

我在努力回忆
what it was, stirring tempered eggs
into hot milk and sugar at the shop
today, what exactly ran through
my mind as the foam 煮熟了
奶油开始吐出来.
是什么??

The cream was turning out well,
hot enough to set when I poured
在蛋里. 蒸汽悄悄升起
my arms then snuck back into the pot
like a request withdrawn and the foam
煮熟了. 奶油变稠了。
开始吐唾沫.

但不是有什么
在我把奶油倒空之前
into pans to cool, something there
and lost in the pot like a drop of sweat
whisked in, something that stopped the steam
on the crook of my arm while the bell
按门铃?

It was good to know the milk was hot
enough already, and I wouldn’t risk burning it
turning up the flame after adding the eggs.
Maybe it was that small reassurance,
没有其他的. 多少生命
归结为一个稳定的手
和耐心?

In June 1940, two weeks after Regina was married in a borrowed white dress, she missed her period. 她一句话也没说.

Six weeks after her wedding, she missed her period again.

“我该怎么办呢??” she asked her mama, Grazia. They spoke Italian, the only language her mother knew.

“告诉他，”格拉齐亚说. “你必须告诉他.

“我不能，”女孩说. “他会打我的. He’ll scream and throw me out. 我不知道.”

“You have to,” her mother said, wiping her daughter’s tears with her apron. “你不能保守秘密. 你的身体会改变. 他会知道.”

When she missed her third period, she gathered her courage. “We’re having a baby,”她说。 to her husband, hoping for a smile.

他皱起了眉头. “I told you I don’t want a screaming brat. It took a week for you to get in trouble? I shouldn’t have married a dumb virgin.”

“我不知道该怎么办,”她说。. 她的眼睛恳求着. 他把目光移开. “我们是天主教. 我不知道该怎么办.”

“You’re Catholic,” he screamed. “这对我来说都是谎言. 你是个蠢婊子. 想想该怎么做.”

“我要生孩子了?”她说。. It was a question more than a fact. Her wet eyes begged like a starving dog.

“不，”他说. His voice was a frozen knife. “I don’t want a brat in my way.”

“我不知道该怎么办.”

“My friend knows an old lady in the city who gets rid of babies. You can go to New York on the train.”

“I don’t want to,” Regina said. “我怕.” She’s heard about the back-room women who get rid of babies. Besides, she loved her swelling breasts. She thought she loved this man, but he’d turned mean since the wedding. Instead of dancing and flirting, he drank shots of whiskey and hit her when dinner was late.

但是她能做什么呢?

她装了一个小包. He handed her a piece of paper with a phone number and drove her to the station.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said in that icy voice. He slipped her an envelope of cash before he grabbed her wrist and twisted hard. “This better be over when you come back. 要么是我，要么是小孩. 你知道该怎么做.”

When the train arrived at Grand Central, she went the only place she knew, Aunt Rosa’s house. She could use the phone there. 罗莎姨妈永远不会知道的. Regina knew she had to do this alone.

“Come in, my sweet Regina,” Aunt Rosa said when she opened the door. She peered into her niece’s eyes. “你还好吗?”?” Regina looked away to hide her seeping eyes.

“怎么了? 他打你了吗??” Tears made dark blotches on Regina’s pink shirt. She wasn’t good at keeping a secret.

“他打我，但更糟. 我得处理掉一个孩子. I’m supposed to call this number.”

“That drunk son of a bitch,” Rosa yelled. “He sticks it in and walks out the door. 别哭，瑞金娜. 孩子是一种福气. 他会喜欢这个孩子的.”

亲爱的奖得主

        She pushed open the back storm door, the yard light arcing through the blowing snow. She felt for the rope with a gloved hand and used it to balance herself down the back porch steps.  They had made fun of her for insisting on the rope, but they hadn’t lived through blizzards she had as a child, when people were known to lose their way as going to the barn, 被发现冻住了, just feet away from an outbuilding.  The rope of her childhood had been thick and rough, with protruding whiskers and when rolled up in the spring was so heavy that it needed to be taken in with the wheelbarrow.  Now it sat unused in the barn, stiff and dead, the winters having been milder in recent years.   今年秋天, she had thought about putting out the rope again, thinking of getting to the barn or getting lost in a blizzard, 思念的寒冷. This new rope was silky and light, bought just for this job this fall.

            Her name was Linda and she thought that fit her life.  谦逊的. This South Dakota farmstead had been the backdrop for her almost all her life, except for the year after high school when she lived in Omaha.  She had met her to-be husband, and he had agreed to return to South Dakota and make a life there with her.  For several years they lived across the road from the farm, in a rented house.  When her parents eventually moved to an apartment in town, yielding the farm life to the young, she and her husband and toddler son had moved in.  When the farming itself didn’t carry them through, her husband got a job as a truck driver and she tended the family and the place, and in this fashion they raised their kids and got along.  She worked as a secretary at the local grange off and on and sometimes at Christmas as a cashier at the Kmart.

            There had been a horse when she was a teenager.  She had always wanted a horse, fantasizing about a sleek steed, cantering through pristine forests, or streaking around the barrels at the fair, maybe even the fair in Sioux Falls.  The reality of a farm daughter’s horse had turned out to be a stocky, stubborn horse capable of withstanding the livestock life, pasturing with the steer and the milk cow.  The perpetual winds and lack of close neighbors made riding a lonely, blustery task and the sheen had been quickly taken off the fantasy.  Her mare Candy had colicked one day when she was in high school.  When she got off the bus, her father was using the tractor to dig a hole by the western fence line.  她平静地接受了, but her younger brother howled in confusion and distress until her mother took him to bed early.

            Now her daughter had two horses on the same land, and her granddaughter was a good rider.  The lonely riding had persisted, but they had a trailer to go to 4H shows, and the teenager was closer to that barrel racing dream.  When Linda let go of the shiny rope to push the sliding barn door open, there was no greeting from the livestock within.  谷仓没有暖气.  The cow was lying down; the horses ignored her.  She did not turn on the light.  It was only slightly warmer with the animals’ body heat; miniscule heat was being generated by the chemical reactions in the soiled straw.  There was a scent of hay, ammonia, and leather.  Even in the cold, the waft of the ammonia was softened by the warm tannin of the leather.     She thought of a balmy spring breeze with the trees just starting to green up, months away.  If she lived to a day like that she would be bed-bound.  She would be in that bedroom with the scalloped-edged sheets and her mother’s old apricot quilt, and she would probably feel frigid and shivering. 

            She moved to the stall of the bay gelding who had a patience about him.  She put up her mittened hand to pat him on the side, but when he flinched she did not finish the pat, thinking better of disturbing the fine layer of warm under his coat.   Instead she found the corner of his stall; the straw was clean there and she slid down to sit.   She thought of the things that she would miss. She wondered how much the world would miss her.  She wondered about her granddaughters’ lives, them getting older, and what the world would turn into.  

                                                               ***