Two Poems by Richard Wilbur

"The House"

Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes
For a last look at that white house she knew
In sleep alone, and held no title to,
And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.
What did she tell me of that house of hers?
White gatepost; terrace; fanlight of the door;
A widow’s walk above the bouldered shore;
Salt winds that ruffle the surrounding firs.
Is she now there, wherever there may be?
Only a foolish man would hope to find
That haven fashioned by her dreaming mind.
Night after night, my love, I put to sea.


"A Measuring Worm"

This yellow striped green
Caterpillar, climbing up
The steep window screen,

Constantly (for lack
Of a full set of legs) keeps
Humping up his back.

It’s as if he sent
By a sort of semaphore
Dark omegas meant

To warn of Last Things.
Although he doesn’t know it,
He will soon have wings,

And I, too, don’t know
Toward what undreamt condition
Inch by inch I go.

Great Friends of Mine

Two brothers on the couch.
Words bearing us out.
Things like spontaneity.
And how he's so much smarter than me.
The axiomatic things,
logic unspooling in strings,
a declaration at most.
A wayward riposte.
But this is exactly it,
the odd and clunky fit,
difficult to label
but precisely (precisely) stable.
I'm challenged and I fight
(though I'm no longer sure I'm right).
But we know now. We know.
This is the only way to grow.
More give and more take.
More icing, less cake.

Choke

Butcher's bridemeat fitting slickly around your hand.
Sewer rats and their unborn pups dripping from your hair.
Concrete like a homeless animal sniffing at your legs.
And a queen bee's birth canal expanding inside you.

It Happened Twice This Summer

My biggest fears don't really have a whole lot
to do with me. They're pretty common, and not
very specific, though they manifest in
specific forms. You've probably guessed by now
what I'm getting at, with my recent titles (although these
poems, which seemed to me so vital to record,
to get these events down on a page, are really
important only to me, and my restlessness, and rage).
But while I am scared of guns, and Roth of the dark,
neither of those are what mark my days with
the feeling of being somehow less. Every day,
nearly every minute, I obsess over very small things.
Things you don't even think about. This poem
has nothing to do with the guns, or the blacking out,
or the paranoia to which I referred, or
the vanity I take in my own written word.
This poem is about what I fear most for me.
Not my friends, real or, like Roth, sadly imaginary.
I wrote this because I'm constantly afraid, having
my most sensitive history so transparently displayed.
My biggest fear in regards to myself
is they will look at my face, and be able to tell.

However, I begin to think that it is not fear that motivates this paranoia, but something less discouraging.

First, he sinks. Quickly, like a fragment of cinder.
Fatigue wells in his eyes like jaundice.
Bruising sighs, sweet and cerebral.
Freedom ties her hair back. Fear rolls up his sleeves.
He feels compression wash through his ribs. Greatly alive.
But paralyzed. His nail beds scrabble.
Glacial, shallow against the green.
He engages. Finds teeth, catching, carves a lifeline under the beds of his nails.
Salt water slowly soaks into the green horizon.
He feels it on his forehead.
He engages. Builds a bridge with his shoulderblades.
Starts counting stars again, automatically.
Fear is ready with a punch in the gut.
Suddenly the paralysis has its hands in his stomach and throat. He fights.
Feels the worms in his limbs. Thrashing, writhes.
Retching. Almost. No. Gripping. Head heaved over. Paisley.

Paisley in red and blue.

His eyes well up and he starts swearing and he swallows and bites his lip and stops himself. His whole body hurts, but he has to move. He is not alone here after all. Blinking hard, he realizes that he has no place to go. His bare toes flex in the underground air. He needs to keep his head down. Put himself back together. But anyplace safe is far away from here. So he'll keep moving. No rest yet. Just running, and hiding. And healing. And making do.

How I Feel

Color is critical. It fades in and out.
Arms lose their strength. Bodies lose body.
I crack my teeth on stones and draw blood.
I hear voices burn. The city hunts us. We fight it with noise.
My nerves howl and rattle their bars.
Bravery screams, "Where did the world go
when our fathers lost their youth? I will not give it up.
Not until my hands rot from wanting."

As it happens more often, it begins to weigh on me.

clouds like small children. threatening to fall.
to turn into a grey ceiling again, where the pores look like stars.
feet clutching the wet ground. he smells gasoline & home.
freezing and abrased. his extremities are clubs and spades.
his dead fingers part the fog and prickle with rebuke, or some seventh sense.
his hand over his heart, he listens for the sixth but cannot feel reassured.
he reaches out but he is stuck. everything is dark, like diamonds or vampires.
people simply vanishing. he is alone on an intravenous island.
his shoulders haul his arms like blocks of giza. he is alone.
he will hide by himself in case he disappears too.
the bilco doors close and he wraps them around him like a shroud.
but it is too dark and things start flashing in his head. reddish hair.
he swats the air and his fingers tangle in something. afraid, he tries to pull away.
light. light. he is alone. his fingers tangle. something to hold on to.
in the mirror his face is red. red dripping from his eyebrows, drawing lines.
red rims under his eyes and red reaching for his irises. like a warning. stop.
he turns away. finds in his blind spot an open field.
he curls and feels his breath curling into dried skins in his lungs.
flattens his hand against the green expanse that threatens to get away from him.
over the edge and spill onto the concrete below.
turns his face into the felt. tonight i am sleeping here.
i am sleeping on a billiards table in the basement of someone who has vanished.
i do not know what day it is. i do not know the last time i slept.
i am alone. i am finally alone. no more reddish hair coming in the dark to