In the Distant Past by Carrie Fountain

我生产的时候
细节不很清楚了
然而一切都历历在目，
突然：我的身体
感知到的一切，
甚至只是
偶尔想起的事情，
就如一位陌生人的气息
让我想起
遥远的过去我了解的某个人
少数几个我爱过
但没有结婚的男人
那段时间
独自生活在阿尔布开克，
一天早晨上班之前
昏倒在厨房里时
在地板上醒来
洒上咖啡。终于。
来了。全力向前移动
最终，让我遭受。
就要开始发生了
这一切
将在那个独特的夜晚
发生
再也不在青少年记忆的池塘里
徘徊
不再给出更多的
一点时间明白
事情不是变得更好
就是更糟
不再从一个地方移到另一个地方
彻底地，我的身体
完全属于我自己，
那就是我的全部，
我大汗淋漓，所以
那个时候
最后，我终于
站在自我之外
观望，我能看见
带我进入这个
世界的东西，正拉你
进入这个世界
我能够看见我的身体
放弃你
把你赠于我
我的身体里
有七情六欲
有七情六欲
没有七情六欲之处
会有疤痕
Things weren’t very specific
when I was in labor,
yet everything was
there, suddenly: all that
my body had known,
even things I’d only been
reminded of occasionally,
as when a stranger’s scent
had reminded me
of someone I’d known
in the distant past. The few
men I’d loved but didn’t
marry. The time, living
alone in Albuquerque,
when I fainted in the kitchen
one morning before work
and woke up on the floor,
covered in coffee. Finally.
it was coming. It was all moving
forward. Finally, it was all going
to pass through me. It was
beginning to happen
and it was all going to happen
in one single night.
No more lingering
in the adolescent pools
of memory, no more giving it
a little more time to see
if things would get better
or worse. No more moving
from one place to the next.
Finally, my body was all
that had ever been given
to me, it was all I had,
and I sweated through it
in layers, so that when,
in the end, I was finally
standing outside myself
and watching, I could see
that what brought me
into the world was pulling
you into the world,
and I could see that my body
was giving you up
and giving you to me,
and where in my body
there were talents, there
were talents, and where
there were no talents,
there would be scars.
“In the Distant Past” by Carrie Fountain, from Instant Winner. © Penguin, 2014. Reprinted with permission