Moving Target

Filled, finally, with.

Washed over by.

The rest--falls, as if
away, seeming like that, like

certain lilies
undone by their own
splitting apart

around, unfolding from,
showcasing (but

incidentally), exposing
utterly (but this,

instinctive) their wet

centers,
their original scent

forgone for a difficult
sweetness that
carries the room, difficult

because the smell of
that which flourished
ending, of initial

rot, really--only

just starting,

how at first
a sweetness, than which

--admit, there have been
worse ways to be led
falsely:

art, for instance;

its kinsman
ruin, for instance;

the belief that springs from, is
for a time
sustained by the business

conducted between the two
(pitiless--

absolute, that
exchange), a belief

that nothing short of
agony invests
adequately a life
with meaning--

if a neck,
then broken; if flesh, not only

torn, but

lavish let be
the angle all tearing
starts at--

      A gift.
A darkness. Very dark especially

about the trees, where

trees were.

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.

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