我们停下来，门开了
然后早来的黑暗
从雨耙过的平台上
吹入
外面就是灯火通明的火车
人们在暴风雨中排队
挤进座位，
他们随身带着
二月的寒气
冬天下午的代理人
寒冷的企业家
现在有事，要回家，
1972年我来自贝尔法斯特
离家仅仅几步：
雪茄烟的气味是同样的
在同样的穿堂风中，
穿过烟幕和寒冷笼罩的人群
一个缓慢的排队
进入没有空的汽车
停停开开，耽搁
几个小时抛在我后面，
在冬天的倾盆大雨中，阵雨雪，
他乘车从英格力斯的工厂而回
面包工人和面包师，
到城里，又等着，
赶上了24还是32路汽车
回家，后翻到他自己的轨迹
到了煤渣砖，底层的
布莱捏公寓；潮湿发霉。
他挂外套的地方
寒冷开始辐射
形体现出，像身体的阴影，
在夜里厅门边；
现在寒冷压迫着过去
在这儿的我或许是一个幽灵尾巴
它已经充满了时光
它的位置丢失 在无限中
线的形状：模糊，脆弱
周五的夜里，大衣裹着
从附近的商店中带来的某个玩具
一先令一个或者六个，
我身边的仍是寒冷，它的形状
和尺寸都冷冰冰，一个纸盒子
里面一位战士或者一辆汽车
玩具和冬夜会混合在一起，正如外面
会溜进里面：礼物，不言说
一夜他迟到了，安静滴进来；
安静滴坐下
喝茶，然后告诉我们
如何工作了半个下午
面包店接待了两个拿枪的人
他们的脸带着面罩
让他们排成一排
在冰冷的地板上，等着，关在里面
问尖锐的问题
这两人终于离开了
无论他们来看谁
他们忘记了的这天，将会
轻易地在某个其他的日子发现
所以，站在他们排队的地方
似乎在某个接待室中
每一个人谈论着，当他们待在后面时
抽烟，溜达，无拘无束
没什么事做，只有回家
我旁边，一件灰色的外套
火车里，正发出
纯粹的寒冷的烟幕的气息
在车厢里的灯光下看不见
可是当我起来，抓住
装满了死沉沉的纸的箱子时
一本书或者两本，我回家迟了
被奔驰的车上的寒意压迫
还有脆弱的塑料士兵
The Overcoat
We stop, and doors come open then
to let the early dark blow in
from whatever rain-raked platform
is just outside the lighted train,
as men who lined up in a storm
crush in to seats, bringing a chilled
February air along with them,
agents for winter afternoons,
and entrepreneurs of the cold.
On business now, and going home,
I'm no more than a few steps from
Belfast in 1972:
the cigarette smell is the same
in the same draught, that pushes through
with men who walk in envelopes
of smoke and cold from a slow queue
and onto buses with no room
in the stops and starts, the hold-ups.
Behind me by a couple of hours,
in winter downpours, sleet showers,
he comes by bus from Inglis's,
and the breadmen and the bakers,
to town, and waits again, and catches
the number 24 or 32
home, back over his own traces,
to a breezeblock, ground-floor
Braniel flat; to damp and mildew.
Where he hangs up his overcoat
the cold begins to radiate,
shaped out, like the body's ghost,
by the hall door at night;
and now the cold that presses past
me here is maybe a ghost's trail,
the time it fills already lost
and its place lost in an infinite
line of shapes: indistinct, frail.
On Friday nights, the coat sealed up
some toy bought from a closing shop
for a shilling or for one and six,
coming to me still cold, its shape
and size all cold, a cardboard box
with a soldier or a car inside,
and the toy and winter night would mix
together, as outside would slip
inside: with gifts and little said.
He was late one night, and came in
quietly; quietly sat down
and ate his tea, then told us how
at work for half the afternoon
the bakery had hosted two
men with guns, their faces masked,
who lined them all up in one row
on the cold floor, to wait, locked in,
for pointed questions to be asked.
The two men left eventually.
Whoever they had come to see
that day they missed, and would find
easily on some other day;
so, standing where they had been lined
up, as if in some anteroom,
everyone talked as they stayed behind,
smoking, and wondering, and free.
Little to do then but go home.
Beside me, a grey overcoat
in the train here is sending out
a smoky aura of sheer cold
invisibly in the carriage-light;
but when I get up, and take hold
of a case packed with dead papers
and a book or two, I come home late,
weighed down with chilly racing cars
and with brittle plastic soldiers.
