Barbara Guest

Otranto

At sunset from the top of the stair watching
 
the castle mallets wrenched from their socket
 
fell from ambush into flame flew into hiding;  
 
above the stoneware a latch like muscle hid  
 
the green; he stood waist high under the rapt
 
ceiling and hanged the sparrow; where the kitchen  
 
had been a mirror of eggs served in a tumbler he
 
saw the ring when a lancet pierced and threw it.
 
 
In a basket and lowered it where sails enter
 
the harbor over a parchment like dominoes;
 
the petrel—like eyelash.
 
To the sun and its rites were pulled the dried  
 
banners; they flew past the ruins the tower
 
and window where ivory guided the mist on his back;
 
he rubbed his eyes and counted them kneeling
 
wrinkled as grass.
 
 
A ghost in their nostrils put a heel at their
 
forehead; they saw only the moon as it
 
fasted.
 
 
II
 
If the ship meant anything if he heard a world
 
view in the midst of his rhythm or the spell
 
lustrous like hair on his arm; that groaned as
 
it struck near the tumble down or
 
combing hair; words burnt as they quickened.
 
The bitter they share crept into forage and
 
muster is in their skin; the grey
 
worked like a vise they brushed this
 
to turn arrows; they shut off the vast
 
cellar and the turret leaped to a pattern;
 
the mosaic blended was untouched.
 
 
III
 
The frankish hills and hummocks metered
 
the greed over sun and cloud; voluptuous
 
in the straits turbanned held scarves to the
 
water each sail embroidered;
 
who washed in their music a lattice.
 
A major or borrowed sky this aspect provides
 
the lily stalk inside the frame; a gesture the lily
 
pointing north as if the wrench from sky decides
 
cold rain or change of tide; the lily
 
she chooses.
 
 
IV
 
Waking in must the high pierced window dew on
 
the furnaced bar the poaching hour the cup
 
takes smoke from the tower; they drink
 
in the smoke the print cradled; cut in dark.
 
The siege made cloth a transfer
 
learned from invaders who craved it;
 
spindle thieves.
 
She sang high notes and pebbles went into her
 
work where it changed into marks; in that room
 
the armor—like wrens:
 
 
rites turned with thread a dower
 
begs lapis; eglantine on a spoon; the castle
 
breeds tallow.
 
 
V
 
A change of tide might delay the run
 
they watched as if by simple water;
 
read magisterially whatever the book decided;
 
night outside covered with filmic screen
 
ghosts they store; then bring an experimental
 
wheel out of hiding.
 
Even the Nile wind; fortune cards
 
jugglers a remedy from old clothes;
 
to appease the fable—pearls
 
rolling in straw.
 
 
The way a cowslip bends
 
they remember or Troilus as he stared;
 
they agree on brighter covers; looser
 
shifts fluent tower to tower.
 
 
More ephemeral than roundness or
 
the grown pear tree connected
 
with vision a rose briar.
 
 
VI
 
There was only a rugged footpath
 
above the indifferent straits and a shelf where the
 
castle lay perhaps it was sphered like Otranto;
 
there the traveller stood naked and talked
 
aloud or found a lily and thought a sword;
 
or dragged a carcass upon blunt stone like a
 
corded animal. In weeds in spiritual
 
seclusion a felt hand lifted.
Other works by Barbara Guest...



Top