Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LEAVES FIRST by CARL PHILLIPS

Poet Analysis

First Line: BEFORE THIS CROWN
Subject(s): LOVE - EROTIC;
Before this crown.
Comes our history whose beginning is
animal, as old as,

@3they meet, they fuck,@1 something
else binds them, @3Let us
not call it.@1

The man's mouth on mine,
my mouth on the woman, and inside her,
you, inside me, inside. Always-

@3Capitaine?@1
The woman first, and what to call
what it was bound us.

Let's not.
The ruin first.
The translation of one sister,

of another the extended
suicide-@3Yes,
but in what order, before or after@1

the mother failing
@3as she has to. Forgive.@1 The mother's mouth
on the relative

stranger's. As we forgive
his on the woman-the mother-, and
inside her. The father first,
both the translation
and the extended leave
of him. Come the gifts, @3what else

binds him,@1 a boat
of tortoise shell, a watch-
@3Yes, but in what order,@1 before, after

the green compass,
green as the grass that
@3-- as it has to --@1 it gets lost in,

no wonder I can't
find it. The loss
first. Before the double blow,

not the father, but wind he says
he commands also, even absent --
the being struck

once for losing a thing given, once
for crying,
@3now it's gone.@1

Before the compass. Before
this crown.
The gift first, only,

so small in the child's hand that was small, blameless, already bound.

Copyright © Carl Phillips





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