Pale Colors in a Tall Field by Carl Phillips

Author:Carl Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

EVEN IF SLEEP AND DEATH ARE BROTHERS

Two children feeding what appears to be a baby goose.

Of beaten gold—gold beaten

to a thinness like that of paper—a woman’s

funeral mask. A satyr, feeding

a baby satyr. A field of battle, lone harpy

in the sky above it, to say death, closing in, even as

the distance between longing

for the not-yet-experienced and for what’s already lost

keeps diminishing. In one version,

Achilles has no idea that the warrior he’s killed

is Penthesilea—a woman. He lifts the helmet off

by its gore-spattered plume, he falls

immediately in love with her stopped face.

We swam too soon; or we swam

too far. As if gracelessness

were as easily avoidable as knowing

when to give in, finally, and no one cared

about grace. I’ve made enemies, should I make

peace with them? Where am I? Let whoever

loved me, by remembering, prove it. Will my son survive?

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