I need you  
the way astonishment,  
which is really just  
the disruption of routine, 
requires routine.  
Isn’t there 
a shock, though—  
a thrill—  
to having done 
what we had to? 
Unequally, but 
in earnest, we love 
as we can,  
he used to mumble,  
not so much his 
mouth moving,  
more the words  
themselves sort of  
staggering around lost  
inside it . . . Now 
show me  
exactly what 
you think being brave 
is. 
Copyright © 2023 by Carl Phillips. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 7, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
I need you  
the way astonishment,  
which is really just  
the disruption of routine, 
requires routine.  
Isn’t there 
a shock, though—  
a thrill—  
to having done 
what we had to? 
Unequally, but 
in earnest, we love 
as we can,  
he used to mumble,  
not so much his 
mouth moving,  
more the words  
themselves sort of  
staggering around lost  
inside it . . . Now 
show me  
exactly what 
you think being brave 
is. 
Copyright © 2023 by Carl Phillips. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 7, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.