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.