Dearest Won




Soon, I supsect, I shall be done with
the dove, and the steep rescue its wings
once, in storied flight unfolding, meant

promise of. Confess -- if I grow used,
now, to a life all jazz-less blow and drag
of storm, it was not always so: before

I'd crossed a lover's trust, only to learn
I did not mind it; before I'd broken --
not a heart, but that as-yet deviceless,

still-apt-at-knee-to-buckle child that,
having looked every elswhere, we turn
at last to the heart's winded field and

find, by a first snow amused, amazed,
finally -- bewildered. In the scant,
hypnotic stagger to which here, in

the glowing walls of illumination, all
walking is shorn down, I need make
room for no one, with the exception of

my lately familiar but, for all that, no
less esteemed consort: praise. Though
restive as leaves, ever busy sustaining

then spilling the next brilliance, I shall
look to none to be lifted, evenings when
it is all I have wanted: to lie hollowed

out, crowned, gifted, and as pale . . . as
pale as -- if damage could have flesh --
that flesh would be. In truth, regret, I

am like damage; be sure: I do not fail.

     --Carl Phillips, Pastoral, copyright Carl Phillips 2000

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