Quarter-View, from Nauset

Had the light
changed, possibly--or,

differently, was that how I'd
seen it

      always, and not
looking? Was I meant for

a vessel? Did I only
believe so and,

so, for a time, was it true but

only in that space which belief makes
for its own wanting?

What am I going to
do with you
      --Who just

said that?

Whose the body--where--that voice
belongs to?

      Might I turn,
toward it, whinny

into it?

My life
a water,

or a cure for
that which no water
can cure?

His chest
a forest, or a lush
failure--

Even now, shall I choose? Do I
get to?

Dearest-once-to-me

      Dearest-still-to-me

Have I chosen
already,

      or is choice a thing
hovering yet, an

intention therefore, from
which, though
late, could I hurry back?

What am I going to do with you--    or

how?
Whom for?

      If stay my hand--where

     rest it?

Carl Phillips is the author of From the Devotions, a finalist for the National Book Award, In the Blood, winner of the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize, Cortége, finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award, and his most recent collection, Pastoral. He teaches at Washington University (St. Louis), where he has also served as the director of the Creative Writing Program.

...