All It Takes — by Carl Phillips

Any force—
generosity, sudden updraft.
Fear. Things invisible,

and the visible effects by which
we know them. Human gesture. Betrayed,
betrayed. The dampness of fog as

understandable by how, inside it, from within their
thicket of nowhere left to hide—
that leafless—the winter berries, more than usual,

shine. First always
comes the ability to believe, and then the need to.
The ancient Greeks; the Romans after. How they

made of love a wild god; of fidelity—a small,
a tame one. I am no less grateful for
the berries than for the thorns that are

meant, I think, to help. As if
sometimes the world really did amount to
a quiet arrangement. Cut flowers. Make

death the one whose eyes are lidless. And
—already—you are leaving. You have
crossed the water.