A Little Closer Though, If You Can, For What Got Lost Here
–Carl Phillips

          Other than that, all was still — a quiet

so quiet that, as if silence were a kind of spell, and

words the way to break it, they began speaking.

            They spoke of many things:

sunset as a raft leaving the water in braids behind it;

detachment, the soul, obedience;

swans rowing at nightfall across a sky filled with snow;

what did they wish they could see, that they used to see;

to mean no harm, or to not especially, just now, be looking for it;

what would they wish not to see, could they stop seeing;

courage mattering so much less than not spooking easily —

maybe all nerve is; the search-and-rescue map wildflowers

make of a field in summer; deserving it, versus asking for it,

versus having asked, and been softly turned from.

            They said it would hurt, and it does.