皮影戏

【美】拉尔夫·安吉尔　　陈子弘  译

她让发动机继续运转。
我也会这样。我愿意娶她，那个
在这城市里重复了千万遍的脸庞。
挨边汽车的废气旁，一个男人
把他的木腿扭成一个不可能的
姿势。他甚至不需要说
“我晓得，我晓得，没人会讨厌我。”
他只是笑笑。

商贩的金属秤上，日光
闪烁摇动。黑砖上有血，
店主取下带着的眼镜。
年轻人在门口坐立不安，
用一只手捂住惊恐
闪现的蓝色，又后靠
靠向散乱的纸张和脚印，
响声从他身边散开
却又不是噪音。

此刻女保洁员停下来
回头看了看。以及
邮差、交警、推自行车的小孩也一样。
绝妙好词栖身于商人们的喉咙深处，
他们胡扯八扯，他们手舞足蹈
滔滔不绝，直到叫来出租车。
在我们之间，只有我们

松开的衣服，亚麻桌布，像瞎子眼睛
一样白。只有运河船的发动机声，
只有爬满青藤的墙，某些匆匆一瞥
空洞了我们双眼，一但相遇，
一但看去，便不能熟视无睹。
一个可能会

老去的人。会灭掉梦想的人。
那些会回来而且会
活在面包香气中的人，活在广场中
千百只鸽子舒展声音中的人。
我愿意要一杯冰水。
这一点就是，当我在幸运时分，
世界就会来靠近我。

诗人简介：拉尔夫·安吉尔（Ralph Angel，1951-2020）系第二代塞法迪犹太裔美国诗人，出版过多部诗集，翻译有洛尔迦的《深歌之诗》并获得威利斯·巴恩斯通诗歌翻译奖。他一生中还获得过普希卡奖、格特鲁德·斯泰因奖、贝丝·霍金奖、美国笔会文学奖及绿玫瑰诗歌奖等多项文学奖项。晚年担任雷德兰兹大学伊迪斯·怀特杰出教授及佛蒙特艺术学院写作硕士项目指导教师。

1988最佳美国诗歌

RALPH ANGEL

Shadow Play

She leaves the motor running.
I would too. I would like to marry her, that face
repeated a million times in this town.
In the exhaust next door a man
twists his wooden leg into an impossible
position. He doesn't even have to say
"I know, I know, and nobody resentsme."
He just grins.

On the vendor's tin scales, daylight
shifts and splinters. Blood on the black brick,
a shopkeeper sweeps glass from his eyelids.
A young man fidgets in a doorway,
cups his hand around a blue
flicker of panic, and leans back
into the shuffling papers and footsteps,
the noise that opens away from him
and is not noise.

Now a cleaning lady stops herself
and looks over her shoulder. And so does
the mailman, a traffic cop, a kid walking his bike.
And the perfect word lodges
deep in the throats of businessmen
talking gibberish, drawing lines around themselves
until obsessed and hailing taxis.
Only our loose clothes

between us, the linen tablecloths, white
as blindness. Only the putter of canal boats,
the vine-covered walls, some cursory
glance that empties our eyes, when they meet,
of options, and won't let go.
A person who might

grow older. People who will dash their dreams.
People who will come back and
live in the aroma of bread, in the sound of
a thousand doves unfolding the plaza.
I would like a glass of ice water.
It’s the little thing, when I’m lucky
the world comes to me.

                                               from Poetry