邂逅在裸體溫泉 (圖)

watercolor by H. Y.

美 國 新 詩 賞 讀




An Encounter


We met naked on the sun deck by the
clothing-optional hot springs,
and I saw the long scar
like a smile across his furred abdomen
where they'd cut the cancer out of him.
He trained people in death and dying,
he told me;
divorced, he'd recently discovered poetry.

We talked as if my loose breasts
were not flopping companionably
against the knee I hugged to my chest.
Sunlight pooled on the wooden deck
like soup--sun soup. A woman did yoga
by the railing, her slender arms
assailing heaven.


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I confessed that I am afraid to die
with poems unsaid inside me,
and he said, "You will.
You'll die with a great poem in your heart
that will never see paper."

We were quiet then. A bee buzzed
perilously close to my sweaty thigh,
and I heard it: I heard
the danger and sweetness inside everything.



Copyrighted by Alison Luterman



這是一位女詩人的作品。

“裸露”是詩和藝術中常見的比喻。它可以直喻肉體和情色，也可以暴露人性的柔美和脆弱。在這首平緩、直敘的詩裏，女主人公與陌生的異性“邂逅”，而且是裸露的。但是，她和他的對話更裸露坦誠，似乎是對“裸體”的諷刺。因為肉體的裸露並非表示靈魂的坦蕩、坦誠。

短短一首詩，在一個看似特殊的環境中折射了一個成熟靈魂對生、死的認知過程，以詩為載體，超越了對女主人公“對死的恐懼”。-- Z.Z.