issue 24, 1999
Black Box
The body, how
then it seemed the length of
beach into which the two
horses, beating
past us, struck their washaway
signs in that last light.
The soul, to be only
that to which so
little will, in
this world,
have been
granted, except waiting.
Ten pelicans,
exactly.
The grottoes, they
were of limestone.
The one who begged
Come,
I’m thirsty.
The one,
still whispering,
Come home.
Here,
where the skin has
reddened and —
somewhat — is swollen.
————
Carl Phillips' newest book of poems is Then the War: And Selected Poems 2007-2020. His new prose book, My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing, will be out later this year. Phillips teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.
Here and,
where the cottonwood’s
leavings cloud the water’s
bank — there.
And if the fawn did not follow?
And if the doe,
missing nothing, climbing
the steep
slope like prairie,
disappears?