余感

1
我想我再次觸摸了你的柔發，
只不過在回憶里，感覺怎樣—

當還是個男孩時，嘗試
利刃的鋒芒—

滿懷驚異去看一條紅線
淌成我的手指一般長。

2
我已將記憶拋卻一旁，
可今天一個多情的手勢—
你的嘲弄之掌如一次
愛撫給我一記耳光—
象只鐵拳打擊我的心房。

但愛情不能復活
因一次窒息死亡：
當墓穴被填滿
回憶僅是土
剩餘在其上。

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—波特勞易爾*

在這樣一個小鎮中你能看到
把他的箱式貨車停在路中間的警官
去同一個橫穿馬路的朋友攀談
引發一起三輛小車交通阻塞的事件

一個年輕人將開車二十英里
去買一本“花花公子”
因為兩個雜貨店的店員
是他母親的朋友

一個城市來訪者在理髮
想象已爆發了第三次世界大戰
就那時志願者火警響起
他獨自一人被丟在了空空的理髮店

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勞易爾市

贈品

她走進我房間帶着一件禮物：
一片綠葉，粘附着一隻
蟬的外皮，完美的死亡形象：
一個蓬鬆幾丁質的易碎恐怖之物

我緊攥着手直到頭腦清楚。

必需多少我才會重新
忘記蟬正於某處發出
尖利的喧囂，以一張新皮—
在一片她帶給我的綠葉上

拋棄一個完美的死亡形象

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.

讓我叫你情人

我伯父坐在桌邊穿着黑色睡衣，
而那時酒瓶大約空了三分之一，
他寫了一張一百美元的支票
並把它給了我姐姐去買新衣。
他一直想要的所有回報，他說，
就是親自將她嫁出完滿她的婚禮。
為了安全我爸爸將支票收起。
當酒瓶空了一半，他開始
給我們說在海灣里從他們的漁船上
撒放他妻子的骨灰。
“就象那樣它們散去了。我期望
就象那樣它們散去了。我期望
它們慢慢地消散，如阿思匹林放如水裡。
我在船的一側洗了手。”
當酒瓶幾乎空了，他告訴我們
有關我們在醫院送給她的音樂盒，
她是如何在她的床邊把盒蓋升起
並傾聽那曲[讓我叫你情人]。
“有時我夜裡給它上緊發條並哭泣。”
“那是醉話，”我媽媽低聲說，
可我知道那是感情的真實表露
與酒瓶唱歌的聲音交織在一起：
一個略微走了點調而這些天裡
即使他也不能夠確定是哪一個。
他從不喝完瓶中的酒便離去
走到他屋裡跌倒在兩張床的中間
隨着一聲碰撞我們跑進屋裡
他已渾然入睡；那音樂盒，亦關閉。

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
(加拿大詩人，現住加拿大埃德蒙頓市，為阿爾伯塔大學現代文學教授。這幾首詩選自於他的第七本詩集[大地精華])