We pause nowhere in Boston, even to admire a store window and

我们不在波士顿停留停下看商店橱窗
the perimeters of our wandering are nowhere.

我们不知浪迹何方
No one watching this woman smear

人们看到她用拇指擦去
her initials in the steam on her water

写在玻璃酒杯水蒸气上的姓名首字母
glass with her first finger, or slip cellophane packets of oyster

或者把一包包玻璃纸包成的牡蛎饼干
crackers into her handbag for the seagulls could know how her thoughts

揽进提包里为海鸥他们绝不会知道
are thronged by our absence, or know

她的思想如何塞满了我们的不存在
how she does not watch, does not listen,

也不会知道她没在看没在听
does not wait, does not hope, and always for me and Sylvie.

没在等也没希望见到我和茜尔维
So, you see in that incredibly lyrical

在这抒情味极浓的
evocation of absence how the very

关于"不存在"的感触中正是这
absence calls forth this lyric voice.

"不存在"使这种抒情角度成为可能