比起在水上吃龙虾
更引人注目的会是什么。
地平线上正消失的太阳，
心甘情愿，再一次，给予我们差不多
任何满意。威廉姆.詹姆斯说
婚姻是睁只眼闭只眼，睁只眼闭只眼，
当然，但也是存大同抛小异：看法，历史，
某个不是你的人坐在桌对面
看着你的事实。
你不能忍受，这片长寓言之后的那张脸
映在镜子中。弗洛伊德说
当我们看见我们自己是我们被治愈
一个陌生人时时刻刻做事的方式。
是否我就是她试图拯救的人，仍然一边倒
设法或多或少地做到，
我就是一会儿之前想逃的人？
这儿，现在，我们，啜饮这小酒
在烛光中暂停，总是迷人的天空
投射的光影中，每一个熟悉的姿态，
令人痛苦的喜欢，我中的我，她中的她，
只有我们相知的我们，孤独地在一起
这些年。你们称之为
幸福或不幸，她才下嘴唇
谨慎地撅着，她绿眼睛里的犹豫不决，
仍然令人惊喜地可爱。
What could be more picturesque
than us eating lobster on the water,
the sun vanishing over the horizon,
willing, once again, to allow us almost
any satisfaction. William James said
marriage was overlooking, overlooking,
yes, but also overlapping: opinions,
histories, the truth of someone not you
sitting across the table seeing the you
you can't bear to, the face behind
the long fable in the mirror. Freud said
we're cured when we see ourselves
the way a stranger does in moments.
Am I the I she tried to save, still lopsided
with trying to be a little less or more,
escaping who I was a moment ago?
Here, now, us, sipping wine in this
candlelit pause, in the charm of the ever
casting sky, every gesture familiar,
painfully endearing, the I of me, the she
of her, the us only we know, alone together
all these years. Call it what you like,
happiness or failure, the discreet curl
of her bottom lip, the hesitant green
of her eyes, still lovely with surprise.
"Husband" by Philip Schultz, from Failure. © Harcourt, Inc., 2007. Reprinted with permission
