評論
打印
Wrinkles
褶皺
As though it could do anything but vanish my mother's life is only tiny stories now
母親的生活平平淡淡，我的記憶中僅有些小故事，
and what I remember of them afterward: how she loved to iron and drink beer on hot nights.
但這記憶就像故事里的褶子一樣指揮漸漸消失：記憶中母親喜歡在炎熱的夜晚邊喝啤酒邊熨燙衣物。
I too love to flatten wrinkles out of a shirt with light blue, or dark green, or white cuffs.
我也喜歡展平襯衣的褶皺，淺藍的，深綠的，白色的。
Tonight I'm sipping beer, the radio's playing "Bird of Prey Blues," followed by "All for You."
今晚我也啜著啤酒，收音機先是放著，“猛禽布魯斯”，又是“只為你”。
It doesn't take much to get me drunk.
我酒量其實一般。
Even so, I don't have enough beer to savor it.
即便如此，這夜的酒也不夠我去品味。
I finish another three shirts and imagine the wrinkles lifting off,
又熨完了三件襯衣，想象著他們環繞著我，
layering and coiling themselves around me like petals of an invisible bouquet.
就像無形的花束上一片片的花瓣。
I think of my mother sitting in a front row of folded chairs at Fort Rosecrans as I stood to speak about the man
母親坐在國際公墓前排的折疊椅上，默默聽我講述著那個人的故事，
whose uniform she ironed, the man whose ashes were slowly marched in front of us.
那個她熨了一生襯衫的人，那個只剩了灰燼盛在甕中，被捧著向我們緩緩走來的人。
This last shirt won't work with the iron.
這最后一件襯衫怎么的都燙不平整。
It curdles in a corner, bunches and won't smooth.
蜷縮一角，皺成一團。
