Anatomy of a Dress

…for once the bird isn’t miracle
at all, but the simplicity of patience

and a good hand assembling: first
the thin bones, now in careful
rows the feathers, like fretwork,

now the brush, for the laying-on
of sheen…As is always the way,
you tell yourself, in

poems — Yes, always,
until you have gone there,
and gone there, “into the

field,” vowing Only until
there’s nothing more
I want — thinking it, wrongly,

a thing attainable, any real end
to wanting, and that it is close, and that
it is likely, how will you not

this time catch hold of it: flashing,
flesh at once

lit and lightless, a way
out, the dappled way, back —

Carl Philips