So that each

is its own, now--each has fallen, blond stillness.

Closer, above them,

the damselflies pass as they would over water, 

if the fruit were water,

or as bees would, if they weren't

somewhere else, had the fruit found

already a point more steep

in rot, as soon it must, if

none shall lift it from the grass whose damp only 

softens further those parts where flesh

goes soft.



There are those

whom no amount of patience looks likely

to improve ever, I always said, meaning

gift is random, 

assigned here, 

here withheld--almost always

correctly

as it's turned out: how your hands clear

easily the wreckage;

how you stand--like a building for a time condemned,

then deemed historic. Yes. You

will be saved.

From The Rest of Love by Carl Phillips. Copyright © 2004 by Carl Phillips. Reprinted by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. All rights reserved.