CHARLES
WRIGHT
Inland Sea
Little windows of gold paste,
Long arm of the Archer high above.
Cross after cross on the lawn. Dry dreams. Leftover light.
Bitter the waters of memory,
Bitter their teeth and cold lips.
Better to stuff your heart with dead moss,
Better to empty your mouth of air
Remembering Babylon
Than to watch those waters rise
And fall, and to hear their suck and sigh.
Nostalgia arrives like a spring storm,
Looming and large with fine flash,
Dissolving like a disease then
into
the furred horizon,
Whose waters have many doors,
Whose sky has a thousand panes of glass.
Nighttime still dogs and woos us
With tiny hiccups and tiny steps,
The constellations ignore our moans,
The tulip flames
snuffed
in their dark cups,
No cries of holy, holy, holy.
Little windows of gold paste,
Long arm of the Archer high above.
Cross after cross on the lawn. Dry dreams. Leftover light.
Bitter the waters of memory,
Bitter their teeth and cold lips. 
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