小红帽
卡罗·安·达菲
（选自 The World’s Wife）
译：张企璐
童年尾声，那些房屋逐渐消失
变成运动场、工地、田圃
（如情妇般，被已婚男士照料着）、
寂静的铁路，隐士的篷车,
直到最终，你到访树林边缘。
也在那，初次遇见了灰狼。
他立于空地中，大声朗读自己的诗句
调子拖长，平装书夹在毛茸的爪中,
红酒染上浓密颔毛。他长着多大的
耳朵啊! 他长着多大的眼睛啊! 多大的牙齿啊！
幕间休息时，我确信他已发现我的踪影，
十六岁的可人，从来没有过，宝贝，流浪儿；甚至邀我喝酒,
我的第一次。你可能会疑惑个中缘由，缘由便是，诗歌。
我知晓灰狼会引我入森林深处,
离家遥遥，而终点黑暗、荆棘丛生
被夜枭双眼光芒照亮。我跟随他尾迹爬行,
长袜被撕成碎片，红色外衣褴褛
钩破在枝条上，谋杀的线索。两只鞋全都遗失
但毕竟是到了终点，灰狼巢穴，要警惕。当夜的第一课,
灰狼的呼吸，在我听来，是首情诗。
我紧紧抓住他颠抖的皮毛，一直到破晓，因为
哪个小女孩不深深爱慕着灰狼呢？
而后我溜出从他强壮邋遢的指爪
去搜寻一只活鸟–白鸽 –
白鸽从我的手掌直直飞进他张开的大嘴。
一口，就死去。好棒啊，在床上吃到早餐，他说着,
舔了舔自己的下巴。他刚睡着，我就偷偷绕到狼巢
后方，整面墙深红，金黄，闪光，遍布书籍。
话语，话语鲜活存在，舌头上，头脑中，
温暖，韵律，狂乱，飞翔；音乐和血液。
但那时我尚年轻——树林里呆了十年
才辨明，蘑菇原来
是尸体嘴上的塞子；飞鸟
是树木流露的思想；灰狼
对月长嗥的同一支曲子，年复一年,
季复一季，同样的韵律，同样的缘由。我拿起斧头
砍向柳木，看它如何哭泣。我拿起斧头
砍向鲑鱼，看它如何跃起。我拿起斧头砍向灰狼
他在睡眠，一下，从阴囊划到喉咙，看见
祖母骨头闪亮，贞洁的白色。
我用石子填满他苍老的腹部。我将腹部缝合。
我带着鲜花走出森林，独自歌唱。
原文如下：
Little Red-Cap
At childhood’s end, the houses petered out
into playing fields, the factory, allotments
kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men,
the silent railway line, the hermit’s caravan,
till you came at last to the edge of the woods.
It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf.
He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud
in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw,
red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears
he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!
In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me,
sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink,
my first. You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry.
The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods,
away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place
lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake,
my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer
snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes
but got there, wolf’s lair, better beware. Lesson one that night,
breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem.
I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for
what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf?
Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws
and went in search of a living bird – white dove –
which flew, straight, from my hands to his open mouth.
One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said,
licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back
of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books.
Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head,
warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood.
But then I was young – and it took ten years
in the woods to tell that a mushroom
stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds
are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf
howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out,
season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe
to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon
to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf
as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw
the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones.
I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up.
Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone.