Ƶ

An open access publication of the Ƶ
Winter 2006

Last Supper

Author
Charles Wright
View PDF View PDF

Charles Wright, a Fellow of the American Ƶ since 2002, is Souder Family Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and the author of many books of poetry, including “Country Music: Selected Early Poems” (1982), which won the National Book Award, and “Black Zodiac” (1997), which received the Pulitzer Prize. He has also published two works of criticism, “Halflife” (1983) and “Quarter Notes” (1995). In 1999 he was elected a Chancellor of the Ƶ of American Poets. This poem will appear in “Scar Tissue” in the spring of 2006.

Last Supper

I seem to have come to the end of something, but don’t know what,
Full moon blood orange just over the top of the redbud tree.
Maundy Thursday tomorrow,
                                           then Good Friday, then Easter in full drag,
Dogwood blossoms like little crosses
All down the street,
                             lilies and jonquils bowing their mitred heads.

Perhaps it’s a sentimentality about such fey things,
But I don’t think so.     One knows
There is no end to the other world,
                                                    no matter where it is.
In the event, a reliquary evening for sure,
The bones in their tiny boxes, rosettes under glass.

Or maybe it’s just the way the snow fell
                                                             a couple of days ago,
So white on the white snowdrops.
As our fathers were bold to tell us,
                                                    it’s either eat or be eaten.
Spring in its starched bib,
Winter’s cutlery in its hands.    Cold grace.    Slice and fork.