Franz Wright

Recurring Awakening


So I stop a tall girl all in white on the hall and receive, with a harried,

desultory apology, the news that you passed last night at three in the

morning.  Passed?  What was it, some sort of exam? At this point I find

myself walking along the ridge in the wake of an ice-storm deep in an

annihilated hilltop wood in West Virginia, at its heart a redwing black-

bird with its feet clenched on a crystal branch, eyes shut and beak wide

open.  And there it is, finally, your face:  at my feet, floating

vertically, nose pressed to transparent black ice. Yes, you are deceased all

right, I can't argue with that, all the signs point to it, white face more grave

and youthful than I have ever known it, frowning slightly as though it were

reading, black hair veiling one eye, a vague smile like the depression a lost

jewel might leave in its black velvet case.  Now you move in a circle around

me, stepping sideways in time to some slow stately dance, hand in hand

with the handless. I can't hear a thing; but it's said that the instant of

being aware we are sleeping and the instance of waking are one, and thus,

against illusion we possess this one defence.  But if you refuse to hear me,

if I can only write you, and write you in black wind-blurred water, what is

the use?

Current books include Wheeling Motel (Knopf, 2009) and Leave Me Hidden (Marick Press, 2009). 7PROSE, seven from the long book of prose pieces, is due out from Knopf in 2011. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Walking to Martha's Vinyard (Knopf, 2004).