Give me this time, my first and severe <br />Italian, a poem about gold, <br />The left corners of eyes, and the heavy <br />Night of the locomotives that brought me here, <br />And the heavy wine in the old green body, <br />The glass that so many have drunk from. <br />I have brought my bottle back home every day <br />To the cool cave, and come forth <br />Golden on the left corner <br />of a cathedral's wing: <br /> <br />White wine of Bologna, <br />And the knowing golden shadows <br />At the left corners of Mary Magdalene's eyes, <br />While St. Cecilia stands <br />Smirking in the center of a blank wall, <br />The saint letting her silly pipes wilt down, <br />Adoring <br />Herself, while the lowly and richest of all women eyes <br />Me the beholder, with a knowing sympathy, her love <br />For the golden body of the earth, she knows me, <br />Her halo faintly askew, <br />And no despair in her gold <br />That drags thrones down <br />And then makes them pay for it. <br /> <br />Oh, <br />She may look sorry to Cecilia <br />And <br />The right-hand saint on the tree, <br />But <br />She didn't look sorry to Raphael, <br />And <br />I bet she didn't look sorry to Jesus, <br />And <br />She doesn't look sorry to me. <br />(Who would?) <br />She doesn't look sorry to me. <br /> <br />She looks like only the heavy deep gold <br />That drags thrones down <br />All day long on the vine. <br />Mary in Bologna, sunlight I gathered all morning <br />And pressed in my hands all afternoon <br />And drank all day with my golden-breasted <br /> <br />Love in my arms.<br /><br />James Arlington Wright<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bologna-a-poem-about-gold/
