英文小诗精选:Dream of the Evil Servant
2015-04-02 07:45
来源:新东方网整理
作者:
by Reetika Vazirani
New Delhi, 1967
1. We kept war in the kitchen.
A set of ten bone china plates, now eight.
As if a perfumed guest stole her riches . . . The next day she wanted to leave at noon.
I said, be back by four, I'm paying you. She sat by the door, she put out her hand,her knuckles knocked against mine,hard deliberate knuckles. I gave her cash.
Off to watch movies, off to smoke ganja.
2. She came back late and high as if my fear asked for it.
I called her junglee. Everything went off late —— dinner, the children getting into bed; but the guests understood: they had servants too. She stuck diaper pins in my children.
I cursed her openly. Who shouted? Or I cursed her silently and went my way.
She stole bangles my husband's mother bought, bangles a hundred years old.
But she wore frayed jewelry hawked on the street. She was like a rock that nicked furniture in corners you'd think only a rat could go.
3. Why didn't I dismiss her?
I don't know.
She got old as I got old.
I could see her sharp shoulder bones
tighten, her knuckled skull.
I had to look at her.
It had to wound me.
Listen, said my mother. Yes mother, I listened, crouched in my head.
Looking over the flowered verandah she said:
Who are you to think you are beautiful? What have you got to show? Go sit on your rag.
All my life I tended to looks,they betrayed me. I bore you. I am wretched. Be my mother. Be my maid.
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(编辑:王美娇)
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