To Myself - Franz Wright

You are riding the bus again

burrowing into the blackness of Interstate 80,

the sole passenger

with an overhead light on.

And I am with you.

I’m the interminable fields you can’t see,

the little lights off in the distance

(in one of those rooms we are

living) and I am the rain

and the others all

around you, and the loneliness you love,

and the universe that loves you specifically, maybe,

and the catastrophic dawn,

the nicotine crawling on your skin—

and when you begin

to cough I won’t cover my face,

and if you vomit this time I will hold you:

everything’s going to be fine

I will whisper.

It won’t always be like this.

I am going to buy you a sandwich.

Alcohol - Franz Wright

You do look a little ill.

But we can do something about that, now.

Can’t we.

The fact is you’re a shocking wreck.

Do you hear me.

You aren’t all alone.

And you could use some help today, packing in the

dark, boarding buses north, putting the seat back and

grinning with terror flowing over your legs through

your fingers and hair . . .

I was always waiting, always here.

Know anyone else who can say that?

My advice to you is think of her for what she is: one

more name cut in the scar of your tongue.

What was it you said, “To rather be harmed than

harm is not abject.”

Please.

Can we be leaving now.

We like bus trips, remember. Together

we could watch these winter fields slip past, and

never care again,

think of it.

I don’t have to be anywhere.

Entry in an Unknown Hand - Franz Wright

And still nothing happens. I am not arrested.  

By some inexplicable oversight

nobody jeers when I walk down the street.

I have been allowed to go on living in this  

room. I am not asked to explain my presence  

anywhere.

What posthypnotic suggestions were made; and  

are any left unexecuted?

Why am I so distressed at the thought of taking  

certain jobs?

They are absolutely shameless at the bank—

You’d think my name meant nothing to them. Non-

chalantly they hand me the sum I’ve requested,

but I know them. It’s like this everywhere—

they think they are going to surprise me: I,  

who do nothing but wait.

Once I answered the phone, and the caller hung up—

very clever.

They think that they can scare me.  

I am always scared.

And how much courage it requires to get up in the  

morning and dress yourself. Nobody congratulates  

you!

At no point in the day may I fall to my knees and  

refuse to go on, it’s not done.

I go on

dodging cars that jump the curb to crush my hip,

accompanied by abrupt bursts of black-and-white

laughter and applause,

past a million unlighted windows, peered out at  

by the retired and their aged attack-dogs—

toward my place,

the one at the end of the counter,  

the scalpel on the napkin.

The Weeping - Franz Wright

He has considered weeping, only

he can’t even bring himself to

 

take a stab at it. He just can’t cry–

it is terrible to cry

 

when you’re by yourself, because

what then?

 

Nothing is solved,

nobody comes;

even solitary children understand. This

apparent respite, apparent quenching

 

of the need to be befriended

might (much like love in later years) leave you

 

lonelier than when you were merely alone?

THE POEM - Franz Wright

It was like getting a love letter from a tree

Eyes closed forever to find you—

There is a life which

if I could have it

I would have chosen for myself from the beginning

Untitled - Franz Wright

Will I always be eleven,

lonely in this house,

reading books

that are too hard for me,

in the long fatherless hours.

The terrible hours of the window,

the rain-light

on the page,

awaiting the letter,

the phone call,

still your strange elderly child.