Aubade: Some Peaches, After Storm
So that each is its own, now—each has fallen, blond stillness. Closer, above them, the damselflies pass as they would over water, if the fruit were water, or as bees would, if they weren't somewhere else, had the fruit found already a point more steep in rot, as soon it must, if none shall lift it from the grass whose damp only softens further those parts where flesh goes soft. There are those whom no amount of patience looks likely to improve ever, I always said, meaning gift is random, assigned here, here withheld—almost always correctly as it's turned out: how your hands clear easily the wreckage; how you stand—like a building for a time condemned, then deemed historic. Yes. You will be saved.
Credit
From The Rest of Love by Carl Phillips. Copyright © 2004 by Carl Phillips. Reprinted by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. All rights reserved.
Author
Carl Phillips

Carl Phillips is the author of several books including Pale Colors in a Tall Field (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020) .He is Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis.
Date Published: 2004-01-01
Source URL: https://poets.org/poem/aubade-some-peaches-after-storm