关于家的例行公事
[美]史蒂芬.杜恩
妈妈去世时
我想：现在我将写一首关于死亡的诗
那时的想法不可饶恕
然而我像那些被母亲爱着的儿子
能够做到的一样
原谅了自己
我凝视着她的棺木
心想她活了多久
寿命几何
在甜蜜的回忆中。
很难精确地记起
我们如何从悲伤中解脱了自己，
但我记得12岁时，
1951年，当世界
解开它宽松的上衣。
我请求妈妈（带着颤栗）
能不能看一看她的乳房
于是她把我带进屋里
既不窘迫也不羞怯
而我看着它们，
不敢再问什么。
多年之后，有人告诉我
得不到母爱的癌症患者
是命定的，而我，一名癌症患者，
却再次受到祝福。有一个妈妈
多么幸运
她向我展示了她的乳房
当与我同时代的少女发展
她们自己的疆域时，
我多么幸运
她并未给我带来厄运
因过多或过少
我请求过的触摸。
或许还吮吸它们，
她会怎么做
妈妈，永不复生的女人
她允许我
更轻易地爱人女人，
这首诗
献给
止步不前的我们，献给足够多的
不完美
以及守口如瓶，
并开始做关于家的
例行公事的你。
诗人简介：史蒂芬.杜恩，1939年生于纽约，获得历史学学士和英语硕士学位，2001年普利策将得主，曾在多所大学任教。
诗人近照：
附原作：
The Routine Things Around the House
by Stephen Dunn
When Mother died
I thought: now I’ll have a death poem.
That was unforgivable
yet I’ve since forgiven myself
as sons are able to do
who’ve been loved by their mothers.
I stared into the coffin
knowing how long she’d live,
how many lifetimes there are
in the sweet revisions of memory.
It’s hard to know exactly
how we ease ourselves back from sadness,
but I remembered when I was twelve,
1951, before the world
unbuttoned its blouse.
I had asked my mother (I was trembling)
if I could see her breasts
and she took me into her room
without embarrassment or coyness
and I stared at them,
afraid to ask for more.
Now, years later, someone tells me
Cancers who’ve never had mother love
are doomed and I, a Cancer,
feel blessed again. What luck
to have had a mother
who showed me her breasts
when girls my age were developing
their separated countries,
what luck
she didn’t doom me
with too much or too little.
Had I asked to touch,
perhaps to suck them,
what would she have done?
Mother, dead woman
who I think permits me
to love women easily,
this poem
is dedicated to where
we stopped, to the incompleteness
that was sufficient
and to how you buttoned up,
began doing the routine things
around the house. |
