By Force
By Force
by Carl Philips
Look—they're turning: how gracefully each
moves, in the surprise of woundedness—and,
where arrow meets flesh, the blood corsaging . . .
Revelation, jackhammers, love, four hooves
in the dirt. How speechless, now. As if always
light must wed the dark, eventually, and the dark
mean silence. I disagree. Touch not the crown— Don't touch me—
Startling, surprising, awful. A deer hunt, I presume; “touch not the crown” alluding to a buck’s antlers but also to his royalty as a creature, and his onlooker. I can’t explain “revelation, jackhammers, love, four hooves in the dirt,” but it works.