Wright, Four Poems of Youth

1. The Dream

Later
that now long lost night
in December, beside you, I saw
that the leaves had returned
to the branches
outside my window. Now
that is all that it was: leaves, blowing
in the windy sunlight: somehow,
in spite of the chances against it
occurring, in spite of the critic's wan sneer,
I dreamed this gorgeous thing.

2.  Minneapolis, 1960

Children in a classroom peer
into microscopes.
Bombsights
it occurs
to the young woman
moving from one
to another, peripherally
mesmerized
by the second hand, trees
flailing
dimly in windows.

3. On the Run

Winter hours, white
dune grass.
Secret
pinewoods to the ocean — now what?

4. The Blackout: First Anniversary

It finds me in Port Authority, penniless,
seated at a bar unable to remember
how I came there (why is obvious).
Do you know this terror — not to remember?
I go to the men’s room and look in the mirror,
look in his aggrieved and music-haunted eyes.
The mouth opens, but there are no words;
there are words, but the mouth will not open.
Tears form but cannot fall, fingers
gradually tightening at my throat . . .
Blood of his blood, flesh of his ghost —
the hand stretched toward me in the flames!
Do you?
I am worn out, I can’t go on.


Franz Wright

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