美文阅读 （458）褶皱
Wrinkles
褶皱
As though it could do anything but vanish my mother’s life is only tiny stories now
母亲的生活平平淡淡，我的记忆中仅有些小故事，
and what I remember of them afterward: how she loved to iron and drink beer on hot nights.
但这记忆就像故事里的褶子一样指挥渐渐消失：记忆中母亲喜欢在炎热的夜晚边喝啤酒边熨烫衣物。
I too love to flatten wrinkles out of a shirt with light blue, or dark green, or white cuffs.
我也喜欢展平衬衣的褶皱，浅蓝的，深绿的，白色的。
Tonight I’m sipping beer, the radio’s playing “Bird of Prey Blues,” followed by “All for You.”
今晚我也啜着啤酒，收音机先是放着，“猛禽布鲁斯”，又是“只为你”。
It doesn’t take much to get me drunk.
我酒量其实一般。
Even so, I don’t have enough beer to savor it.
即便如此，这夜的酒也不够我去品味。
I finish another three shirts and imagine the wrinkles lifting off,
又熨完了三件衬衣，想象着他们环绕着我，
layering and coiling themselves around me like petals of an invisible bouquet.
就像无形的花束上一片片的花瓣。
I think of my mother sitting in a front row of folded chairs at Fort Rosecrans as I stood to speak about the man
母亲坐在国际公墓前排的折叠椅上，默默听我讲述着那个人的故事，
whose uniform she ironed, the man whose ashes were slowly marched in front of us.
那个她熨了一生衬衫的人，那个只剩了灰烬盛在瓮中，被捧着向我们缓缓走来的人。
This last shirt won’t work with the iron.
这最后一件衬衫怎么的都烫不平整。
It curdles in a corner, bunches and won’t smooth.
蜷缩一角，皱成一团。