Dreamed.

Lepcke, The Archer, 1910

ARCHERY

           was still a thing, then. To have timed your arrow

perfectly meant watching the air for a moment

seem stitched throughout with a kind of

timelessness. To have straddled at last, correctly,

the storm of falling in love (and staying there) meant

the smell of apples, victory, tangerines, and smoke

all mixed together on the breath

of a stranger, half asleep still, just beginning to remember a bit,

as he stirs beside you. I dreamed we were young again,

he’s mumbling, as if to someone whose name he’s known

long enough to have called it out more than once in anger

and sex and fear equally. Somewhere happiness too,

right? All those hours spent trying to outstare the distance

of what the days must come to,

and pretending a choice to it: now the shadow-script

that willows and hazel trees mark the barn’s western

face with; now the wind-rippled field, like a lesser version—tamer,

tameable—of the sea, for movement (same infinite

pattern, and variation; randomness and intention; release;

restraint—that kind of movement) ...

                                                         Dear saddle

of gentleness. Dear moss, sweet moss that only

the dark and wet and patience make possible. To sing a song

of  water, and not drown in it. And some calling that

a good trick. And some calling it

mastery. That last flickering before nightfall. From beneath

the low branches. I dreamed we were new again. Stars. Just a little

past dusk.

Carl Phillips