Bellaghy

Winner of the 2009-2010 AWP Intro Journals Project,
selected by Lynn Powell

Stepping off the bus from Magherafelt,
I feel my ass pinched（压紧，痛苦） by a boy not yet
out of junior school and, deposited
all alone, am greeted by a quartet（四重奏）

of smells: cows, cowshit, stagnant water（积水，死水） , peat（泥煤，泥炭） .
Steeple-led, I stroll to the Catholic church
but don't find Heaney marked on any graves.
The roots of blackberry bushes winch（绞车，曲柄）

up the path; I scrape by branches clotted
with berries that are ripe but sour.
On to the street of the town. There's an inn,
a Chinese takeaway, a twenty-four-hour

eatery（小饭馆） where once-frozen foods sizzle（发嘶嘶声）
in the tired deep-fryer, a pub—always
there is the pub and its patrons（赞助人，老顾客） . I speak
to no one, am stared at, watch the gray

sky become more gray, the rain elongate（拉长，延长）
to needles on its way to the ground.
Here, the scholars must climb from hired cars,
ask, "Here?" and decide from looking around,

"God no, this can't be the place." I know
this is the place. Home of no beauty, lit
by no sun, he claimed it. And still now,
there's no beauty except what he gave it.