Like a floating
Restlessness, alive
& tender.
 
So this: in the flat.
Think of it as
Salt—
 
From stain, thin
And papery,
A splaying
 
Open into 
Stars, she, skimming
The sluices open,
 
Quick & generous, 
Her dress hitched
For give.
 
What if the will
were husk entirely,
and the husk,
breakable,
were broken open, to
where the seeds are? What
then? 
 
It is as they
Said it was:  the plowman
Sings of tether,
 
So pure, so bare, so 
Detached, it is 
Not prior to
  
Anything and  
Never no where
Without.
 
It is only that which
Explodes 
In the mouth.  You.


Notes
 
Stanza 6:  from “North” by Carl Phillips in The Rest of Love.
Stanza 9:  a variation of Rilke’s line “And never Nowhere without the No” from 
                “The Eighth Elegy,” translated by Stephen Mitchell.