余感

1
我想我再次触摸了你的柔发，
只不过在回忆里，感觉怎样—

当还是个男孩时，尝试
利刃的锋芒—

满怀惊异去看一条红线
淌成我的手指一般长。

2
我已将记忆抛却一旁，
可今天一个多情的手势—
你的嘲弄之掌如一次
爱抚给我一记耳光—
象只铁拳打击我的心房。

但爱情不能复活
因一次窒息死亡：
当墓穴被填满
回忆仅是土
剩余在其上。

Afterimages

1
I thought I'd touch your hair again,
just in recollection, how it felt --

and once as a boy, testing
the sharpness of a knife --

surprise to see a red line run
the length of my finger.

2
I've thrust the memories under,
but today an amorous gesture --
your mock - slap settling
on me like a caress--
hit my mind like an iron fist.

But love doesn't revive
after a smothering death:
recollection are only
the earth that's left over
when the grave is filled.

新斯科舍—波特劳易尔*

在这样一个小镇中你能看到
把他的箱式货车停在路中间的警官
去同一个横穿马路的朋友攀谈
引发一起三辆小车交通阻塞的事件

一个年轻人将开车二十英里
去买一本“花花公子”
因为两个杂货店的店员
是他母亲的朋友

一个城市来访者在理发
想象已爆发了第三次世界大战
就那时志愿者火警响起
他独自一人被丢在了空空的理发店

Port Loyal, Nova Scotia

In a town this small you can see
the constable stop his van midstreet
to chat with a jaywalking friend
creating a three car traffic jam

A young man will drive twenty miles
to buy a copy of Playboy
because the clerks at both drugstores
are friends of his mother

A city visitor having a haircut
thinks World War Three has started
when the volunteer fire alarm goes off
and he’s left alone in an empty shop

*加拿大新斯科舍省波特劳易尔市

赠品

她走进我房间带着一件礼物：
一片绿叶，粘附着一只
蝉的外皮，完美的死亡形象：
一个蓬松几丁质的易碎恐怖之物

我紧攥着手直到头脑清楚。

必需多少我才会重新
忘记蝉正于某处发出
尖利的喧嚣，以一张新皮—
在一片她带给我的绿叶上

抛弃一个完美的死亡形象

Bestowal

She comes into my room with a gift:
a green leaf, the husk of a cicada
clinging to it, the perfect image of death:
a crisp horror of puffy chitin

I clench my hands until my head clears.

How much I must need renewal
to forget that the cicada is making
brittle music somewhere in a new skin—
on a green leaf she has brought me

a perfect image of death cast aside.

让我叫你情人

我伯父坐在桌边穿着黑色睡衣，
而那时酒瓶大约空了三分之一，
他写了一张一百美元的支票
并把它给了我姐姐去买新衣。
他一直想要的所有回报，他说，
就是亲自将她嫁出完满她的婚礼。
为了安全我爸爸将支票收起。
当酒瓶空了一半，他开始
给我们说在海湾里从他们的渔船上
撒放他妻子的骨灰。
“就象那样它们散去了。我期望
就象那样它们散去了。我期望
它们慢慢地消散，如阿思匹林放如水里。
我在船的一侧洗了手。”
当酒瓶几乎空了，他告诉我们
有关我们在医院送给她的音乐盒，
她是如何在她的床边把盒盖升起
并倾听那曲[让我叫你情人]。
“有时我夜里给它上紧发条并哭泣。”
“那是醉话，”我妈妈低声说，
可我知道那是感情的真实表露
与酒瓶唱歌的声音交织在一起：
一个略微走了点调而这些天里
即使他也不能够确定是哪一个。
他从不喝完瓶中的酒便离去
走到他屋里跌倒在两张床的中间
随着一声碰撞我们跑进屋里
他已浑然入睡；那音乐盒，亦关闭。

LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART

My uncle sat at the table in black pyjamas,
and when the bottle was about a third empty,
he wrote a cheque for a hundred dollars
and gave it to my sister to buy clothes.
All he ever wanted in return, he said,
was to give her away at her wedding.
My father took the cheque for safekeeping.
When the bottle was half empty, he began
to tell us about scattering his wife’s ashes
in the Gulf from their fishing boat.
‘Just like that they were gone. I expected
them to melt slowly, like aspirin in water.
I washed my hands over the side.’
When the bottle was almost empty, he told us
about the music box we sent her in the hospital,
how she would lift the lid by her bedside
and listen to the tune, ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart.’
‘Sometimes I wind it up at night and cry.’
‘That’s the whisky talking,’ my mother whispered,
but I knew it was the true voice of feeling
and the voice of the bottle singing together:
one was a little off-key and these days
even he couldn’t be sure which one it was.
He never finished the bottle but went off
to his room where he fell between the twin beds
with a crash that brought us running in.
He was sound asleep; the music box, shut.

---By Bert Almon
(加拿大诗人，现住加拿大埃德蒙顿市，为阿尔伯塔大学现代文学教授。这几首诗选自于他的第七本诗集[大地精华])