影中邂逅

是在夜晚睡觉前

还是在早晨醒来时

妻子说

“我去见了你母亲”

那时我只是简单应了声“嗯”

我清楚，二十五年前死去的母亲

不可能从那里赶来见她

一定是妻子去了那里

横穿过梦的原野，再走下死亡的山谷

明明胆小却又莽撞

跟二十五年前第一次见她时一样

被关门的声音吓得跳起来

轻易被太阳的邀请耍弄

独自一人也能跳舞的她

可是，风停后是死一般的寂静

闭上眼，从山丘对面

妻子向我走来

她浑身泥泞，脸颊渗血

怀抱着珍奇野兽的沉默

An Encounter in Shadows

Was it before we fell asleep at night

or just after we woke up?

My wife said,

“I saw your mother.”

I just answered then, “Oh.”

I knew that my mother, dead these twenty-five years,

couldn’t have come to see my wife.

My wife must have gone to see her

crossing a dream-field and descending into the valley of death.

She is timid but bold,

the same as when I first met her twenty-five years ago.

The door slams and she jumps.

Easily tempted by sunlight, and tossed about,

she is a woman able to dance even just by herself.

But when the wind dies down, everything is as still as death.

In my dream

my wife comes walking from over the hill,

covered with mud, her cheeks bloodied up,

the silence, as of a rare beast, in her breast.

团圆

父亲不知道

儿子在森林尽头

像北美原住民举行仪式

庄严地吐着万宝路烟圈

儿子不知道

妹妹在洗漱枱的镜子前

像变成蜘蛛的公主

一直站了一个半小时

妹妹不知道

猫咪桑丘被车碾过

艳粉色的肠子散落一地时

在疼痛之余还感受到了什么

猫咪不知道

院子里的白蜡树

猛烈地抖落叶子时

向远离屋顶的云朵托付了什么

只有云朵

察觉到

母亲身心的深处

正慢慢养育一头白鳄

母亲不知道

自己紧绷的脸

在丈夫眼里是什么样

丈夫又从中读懂了什么预言

在曾祖父的情书、孟德尔与咸鲑鱼的名下

他们构成家庭

聚集在散落着骨头和羽毛的客厅

以和睦和争吵结界短暂的永生

复活的猫咪桑丘

磨着指甲边注视这一切

The Family Room

The father doesn’t know

that in the forest clearing, his son

is solemnly, ceremoniously smoking a Marlboro

as if in a Native American ritual.

The son doesn’t know

that his little sister has stood transfixed before the bathroom mirror,

like a princess turned into a spider by magic,

for well over an hour and half.

The sister doesn’t know

what Sancho the cat felt other than pain

when he was run over and his brilliant pink intestine

spilled out over the pavement.

The cat doesn’t know

what the ash tree in the garden was entrusting

to the cloud drifting far off over the rooftops

as it shook its leaves off into a tempest.

Only the cloud notices

a white alligator growing slowly, steadily,

in the depths of the mother’s body and soul.

The mother doesn’t know

how her sullen face looks

through the husband’s eyes

and what prophecy he reads therein.

In the name of great grandfather’s love letters, Mendel’s law, and salted salmon,

a family is constituted.

Its members gather in a living room

scattered with bones and feathers,

laughter and quarrels granting them momentary immortality.

Sancho the cat, now resurrected

and sharpening his claws, watches all this go by.

中文翻译：田原、刘沐旸

Translated from Japanese to English by Jordan Smith, Akiko & Yasuhiro Yotsumoto

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