记忆所揭示

【美】苏珊·惠勒　　陈子弘 译

天使被拽入光——惹动空气，坠落
于此。你面前摆着份阙如的早餐；
你须自己搅拌果汁。窗外，哥伦布大道，
片刻冲刺汇成拥堵大爆发。

这并非他们带你首次去拍照紧裹的初衷，
但决心是极昂贵的叠加体。

有几年，步伐小心翼翼穿过
下曼哈顿。噩梦中耸现的帆。
台球厅，简陋的浮雕纵横交错。
冰箱门背后的蛋黄酱。

你迈向前，步入光，踏上缀满酒杯的
　　绿草坪
伴着明尼苏达蝉的嗡鸣声。四面八方坚定的回应
　　挥舞着。
他最简单的低语、最琐碎的安慰。点燃了你的裙子。

近在咫尺的烧杯旁一个胖子弯腰。

那两个闯入你房间的人很怪诞，
你正拼着命发音碎片式收集隐私。
抛光（他们正在飞翔）约法三章（约定
警棍的灾难）——或许他们说过
国家扮装。这儿留下空洞，那里留下缺憾，
还有他，那狗，也得着了它。
现在塔莉亚在整理手套箱。
右边在静静地碾压，嗡嗡声
或轮毂，这明亮而恐怖的夜晚。

正是时间改变了怪物的基因。你被推向
新电梯后方，朝向样板公寓，始于帆，
始于那仍在困扰你的颤抖。如同只是
梦到的凶手，你摆不脱灾难的历史。
你的袖口，现在白净挺直，映衬着套装。
情意确认了。

潜入水中，他的翅膀合二为一。生意
即伤害。

你刺破了什么，灯光的左轮手枪下止血带
绑缚着腿筋？

独行侠回应。就像华夫饼格子样，一束捆绑好的
烤翅。一个鸡蛋掉出来。

你为早餐和它打散列出的冗长菜单
付账。
有足够的泥土来填埋每辆车，
每张张开的嘴在光线下打着哈欠
在哥伦布大道上。 

诗人简介：苏珊·惠勒（Susan Wheeler，1955年7月16日—），美国当代诗人、小说家和教育家，以其语言密集、意象超现实和文化批判的诗风著称。出生于明尼苏达州罗切斯特，成长于新英格兰，她毕业于本宁顿学院文学专业，并在芝加哥大学攻读艺术史研究生课程。惠勒出版了多部诗集，包括《钻石袋》（1993，获诺玛·法伯首书奖）、《烟雾》（1998）、《源代码》（2001）、《账本》（2005，获爱荷华诗歌奖）和《迷因》（2012，入围国家图书奖）。她的诗作融合流行文化、历史典故和日常细节，展现出对消费主义和现代生活的尖锐批判，被评论家誉为“真正的文化批评家”。惠勒曾获古根海姆基金会和纽约艺术基金会奖学金，作品常出现在《诗歌》杂志等刊物上。她曾在爱荷华大学、纽约大学、哥伦比亚大学等任教，现为普林斯顿大学创意写作项目教授（现为荣休教授）。她的小说《唱片宫》（2005）进一步展现了其叙事才华。

SUSAN WHEELER

What Memory Reveals

Angels, pulled into light—provoking the air, fall
here. You are served a fallow breakfast;
you must stir your juice. Outside, on Columbus Avenue,
a momentary lunge convenes a trafficked burst.

This is not what was intended when they took you to your first
photo session, swaddled. But intent is a ruinous composite.

There were several years of careful steps across
lower Manhattan. A looming sail in a nightmare.
A poolhall, crisscrossed by rudimentary reliefs.
Mayonnaise in a refrigerator door.

You stepped forward, into light, onto a green lawn dotted with
      tumblers
and the hum of Minnesota cicadas. Everywhere a firm rejoinder
      waved.
He whispered the simplest, pettiest of comforts. Your dress alit.

A fat man bends beneath the beaker’s proximity.

Freakish, the two that burst into your room where you
were gathering privacy frantically, phonetically.
Burnish (they are flying) regulation (appointments a
calamity of rosewood)—or perhaps they said
furnish the nation. This left a hole, that left a lacking,
and he, the dog, had it, too.
Now Thalia rearranges the glove compartment.
On the right there is a quiet flapping, a whirring
or a wheel joint, in a bright and terrifying night.

It was time that altered monster genes. Pressed to the rear of a
new elevator toward a model apartment, you started with the sail,
with the tremoring that troubles you still. Like the murderer
who only dreamed, you can’t shake catastrophe’s history.
Your cuff, straightened now, is white against your suit.
The cordialities confirm.

Diving into water his wings conflated. Business
is damage.

What have you pricked, a tourniquet hamstring
under a revolver of lights?

A Lone Ranger replies. There is a waffling like a tournedos
of bundled wings. An egg drops out.

You pay for your breakfast and its litanous menu,
scrambled.
There is earth enough to fill each car,
each open mouth yawing in the light
on Columbus Avenue.

                              from Sulfur