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
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.
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