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.
