原版英文故事与诗歌：English Lesson

English LessonBy Robert SeatterRoberto is playful and wants to talk about sex in cars
and gear¹ sticks. We lose ourselves in body parts:
engine, carburettor, vroom, vroom.

Carla likes cooking, the gnocchi
her grandmother taught her how to make - a whole day set
aside, potatoes in piles, all the family peeling.
Her fingers forgetful of typewriter keys.

Giancarlo bicycles twenty kilometres every Sunday
(we imagine his overfed thighs² in lycra and laugh).
He lists all the cups he won when the weekend was just
one long white road, his podgy hands making circles,
his moustached mouth the whirring of spokes³.

Gianni goes back to his village, kisses his seven
little sisters, loves checking his row of reddening tomatoes.
He wears different shoes, screwing his face up at
buckled⁴ black leather. No briefcase⁵. No boss.

Francesca likes going to the mountains, the lakes, the sea -
wherever her friends have houses. We are all invited.
When you open the windows all the houses have
beautiful views, and there is panettone for breakfast.

Franco plays cards in the bar with his friends.
Same bar, same friends: every evening playing poker⁶
at Vittorio's place. He counts the years on his fingers
as if he had never counted before.

Lucia says she cries all weekend, every weekend -
since Massimo left her. She sits in the flat and cries.
There is nothing else to do.

The silence pulls at her words, dangling⁷ cut-out and
foreign on the air, begging to be mistakable:
a disappearing trick against the classroom's white walls.

Then Roberto claps his hands. He meant to say
he likes practising English. We all groan⁸.

With kind permission of the poet, previously published in Poetry as a Foreign Language, edited by Martin Bates, White Adder Press, 1999

 

 

1 gear   

n.齿轮，传动装置，设备，衣服；vt.使适应

参考例句：

• We have to gear our lives to the new changes.我们必须使自己的生活适应新的变化。
• The teeth of the wheel gear into each other.齿轮互相啮合。

2 thighs   

n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿

参考例句：

• He's gone to London for skin grafts on his thighs. 他去伦敦做大腿植皮手术了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The water came up to the fisherman's thighs. 水没到了渔夫的大腿。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 spokes   

n.（车轮的）辐条( spoke的名词复数 )；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动

参考例句：

• Her baby caught his fingers in the spokes of the pram wheel. 她宝宝的手指被婴儿车轮的辐条卡住了。 来自辞典例句
• The new edges are called the spokes of the wheel. 新的边称为轮的辐。 来自辞典例句

4 buckled   

a. 有带扣的

参考例句：

• She buckled her belt. 她扣上了腰带。
• The accident buckled the wheel of my bicycle. 我自行车的轮子在事故中弄弯了。

5 briefcase   

n.手提箱，公事皮包

参考例句：

• He packed a briefcase with what might be required.他把所有可能需要的东西都装进公文包。
• He requested the old man to look after the briefcase.他请求那位老人照看这个公事包。

6 poker   

n.扑克；vt.烙制

参考例句：

• He was cleared out in the poker game.他打扑克牌，把钱都输光了。
• I'm old enough to play poker and do something with it.我打扑克是老手了，可以玩些花样。

7 dangling   

悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口

参考例句：

• The tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now. 结果，那颗牙就晃来晃去吊在床柱上了。
• The children sat on the high wall,their legs dangling. 孩子们坐在一堵高墙上，摇晃着他们的双腿。

8 groan   

vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音

参考例句：

• The wounded man uttered a groan.那个受伤的人发出呻吟。
• The people groan under the burden of taxes.人民在重税下痛苦呻吟。