The Sunday Swim, Comanche Trace by Noel Crook

峡谷悬架赤裸裸地陡峭，
下面的池塘一片漆黑。
峡谷鹪鹩从窄窄的悬岩上
对我们歪歪叽叽
羽扇豆花依靠纠缠，像我们，
他们能找到任何一个点蹬稳。
我们攀巉岩而下
随即用螺栓加固跳水码头，
慢慢擦破了我们的皮肤，
牛蛙呯得一声掉下来砸到我们。
其他孩子，赤裸裸黑黝黝，
在那里洗浴，玩耍，深蹲
沿着多岩石的水沿
留给我们闪闪发光的箭簇
轻软的烂泥挤进我们的脚趾，
水弄绿了我们脚，升到
我们的臀部，拉我们进入，
盈满我们的胸怀，捧起我的下巴。
那股沁凉渗进一只耳朵。
小鲦鱼小心翼翼地穿过我们的头发。
我们随着云漂浮，
白云的天蓬，白云的地板。
The canyon ledge was steep and stark,
the pool below a patch of dark.
The canyon wrens careened our names
and from the narrow overhangs
the lupines leaned and clung, like us,
to any purchase they could muster.
We grappled down the frowning rock
then bolted for the swimming dock,
slowed to strip down to our skins,
the bullfrogs plopped to beat us in.
Other children, dark and bare,
had bathed and played and squatted there
and left us shining arrowheads
along the rocky water’s edge.
The velvet slime squeezed through our toes,
the water greened our feet and rose
around our hips and pulled us in,
filled our arms and cupped our chins.
Its coolness seeped into an ear.
The minnows threaded through our hair.
We floated there along with clouds,
clouds our ceiling, clouds our ground.
“The Sunday Swim, Comanche Trace” by Noel Crook from Salt Moon. © Southern Illinois University Press, 2015. Reprinted with permission.