Lay Me Down

Lay Me Down Carl Phillips (bio) Lay me down. Let me. Lay me down. Now. As water upon water, think rainon particular waters: Illyrian, Potomac, Mississippi— My Barge?My Skiff? A paper boat across the water of—we havebeen places, times— of one particular and lost summer’s pool: dark, and the only light what the pool’s lights from below, frombeneath the water cast through it and up to each tree bent toward it, and the leaves accordingly blue, lunar, a made metal, [End Page 202] caustic, as in or as if by flame fired clean. Now; let me.As snow upon, into any vale, that vale— we have beenplaces, times— where has always lain historically temptation, we share that history, slim be it. Sauvage, Mon Sieur, My Found and Found Again Star: for as irradiant, though I had otherwise— I am swoon, so am I blunder—yes, predicted. You were: Everything, they said. I say it now. 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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