我的父亲曾经卖给斯坦.穆夏尔
一辆雪佛兰汽车，据说，
回溯到五十年代，
在大学三年级
那时最令人垂涎的物体
是一张斯坦曼棒球卡
圣路易斯的下等酒吧
或者河边爵士俱乐部
也不比杰克.巴克舌头上
冒出的三个音节动听
在我们街道上车库
黑漆漆的口边
人们像我的父亲一样
穿着有袖子的流放衬衫，
一手拿着雪茄烟，苏格兰威士忌
在另一只手中，收音机
随着扑克牌此起彼伏
如果那个杰克.巴克在身后叫
我的父亲喝着酒，
我应该说过
他摇摆着走到露天座位。
他脚步踉跄。
无论如何，这个代理商失败了，
婚姻成了一堆灰烬
可是知父莫若子，我怀疑
这个故事是否是真的，
虽然我爱想象
那个大块头，乡巴佬的微笑
在陈列室里熠熠闪光，这位销售员
和机械师在历史的边缘
最高座位上观看，当我穿着黑色西装的爸爸
把钥匙交个这个人，
瞬间那里的每个人
都突然知晓了自己
极好的一部分
而那时，
在古老的神话中，一位无聊的神
穿着入我们中的一个，
在夏日雷公的头下倒下了
惊醒了我们乏味的白日梦
天堂的炫目让我们震惊。
附原文：My father once sold a Chevy
to Stan Musial, the story goes,
back in the fifties,
when the most coveted object
in the universe of third grade
was a Stan-the-Man baseball card.
No St. Louis honkytonk
or riverfront jazz club
could be more musical
than those three syllables
rising from the tongue of Jack Buck
in the dark mouths
of garages on our street,
where men like my father
stood in their shirt-sleeved exile,
cigarette in one hand, scotch
in the other, radio rising
and ebbing with the Cards.
If Jack Buck were to call
my father's drinking that summer,
he would have said
he was swinging for the bleachers.
He was on a torrid pace.
In any case, the dealership was failing,
the marriage a heap of ash.
And knowing my father, I doubt
if the story is true,
although I love to imagine
that big, hayseed smile
flashing in the showroom, the salesmen
and mechanics looking on
from their nosebleed seats at the edge
of history, as my dark-suited dad
handed the keys to the Man,
and for an instant each man there
knew himself a part of something
suddenly immense,
as when,
in the old myths, a bored god
dresses up like one of us, and falls
through a summer thunderhead
to shock us from our daydream drabness
with heaven's dazzle and razzmatazz.
"Musial" by George Bilgere. Reprinted with permission of the author.