Clay

Clay Carl Phillips (bio) The shape of any thing is the shape a line makes around it. So whatever my body can recall of another’s hands— hard, spent upon it. So whatever fossil —a feather, a fern— slate surrounds. If there can be one, the shape of any line is its direction. Shape, direction: the crosstrees. That point where the two cross has been narrative, history—our story. When did I choose The Flesh, Wanting? . . . . —In Pompeii, it took ash to preserve the struggle against ash. Carl Phillips Carl Phillips is the author of In the Blood, which won the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize, and Cortége, a National Book Critics Circle Award. He is an associate professor of English and African and African-American Studies at Washington University (St. Louis), where he directs the Creative Writing Program. Copyright © 1998 Charles H. Rowell

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