issue 7 FEATURE
SINCE YOU ASK
Carl Phillips
Though trying to get there can
only mean destruction—so many wings
beating frantically toward the sun, and
never getting there—I say the wings are blameless.
Likewise if, having figured he could pretty much take
whatever was given, they gave him more than
even he could take: doesn’t everyone fall? I
look out across the dark garden, to where the trees begin,
where the catalpa’s come meanwhile back into white,
believable, indifferent blossom, and then
past that, to where the dark deepens. I touch my
one hand to the other hand. It’s like magic,
all the sorrow that magic comes with,
nothing feels the same.
Photo by Doug Macomber
Carl Phillips is the author of thirteen books of poetry. He has been a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.