Lord of the ugly chair and broken sofa,
Lord
Of mouse piss and pack rat shit,
Lord of the badger bite and the pine squirrel nest,
cleanse me and make me whole.
Shuttle my insecurity, hasten my diptych.
As the sun runs its fingernails
against the western skyboard,
Tell me that things will be all right, that hell is no certainty.
Charles Wright’s many awards include the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. His recent books include Caribou (FSG, 2014), Littlefoot (FSG, 2007), and Scar Tissue (FSG, 2006), and he was the guest editor of the 2008 edition of The Best American Poetry. He is the emeritus Souder Family Professor of English at the University of Virginia. In 1993, he received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. In 2014, he was named Poet Laureate.
