The Closing Hour
       

          There are pleasures so ordinary that we barely notice them.
They leave no impression worth mentioning, even. Not
the leaves but the delicate under-leaves that we'd
          somehow missed. Not the stranger whom we've never met,
whom we pass on the walk each morning,
but the matched set of off-white-not-quite-ivory-though
          spaniels that seem to float like two patches of low fog
to either side of him. I used to worry
about the impression I left on others; and then I really
          don't remember which came first: I grew up?
I grew tired? Desire had become by then something different
from what it had been. More hurricane than tornado, its
          damage therefore more easily at least prepared against,
if not forestalled. That certain gestures
don't so much linger as seem to make a routine of
          unexpectedly becoming more apparent some moments
than at others doesn't mean we miss them, means there were parts
that we loved. I regret almost nothing. I come
          in peace   A lost beast   A crown of feathergrass   A matching wreath

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Copyright © 2022 Carl Phillips All rights reserved
from Poetry London
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission