“The dragonfruit / cactuses, ornamenting the yards we walked past, hadn’t / flowered yet, but soon would, the way what isn’t love-at all- / can begin to feel like love.” The precision is supported (in this case) by the long line, a line that seems in praise of taking the words necessary to get it exactly right. What such craft allows is a layering of vision.
If he were a painter he would take one color-green, say-and show us all the shades and temperatures it can possibly bear and still be called green, and we would know with our eyes that a tight focus, to a great artist, is hardly that. Carl Phillips writes a poetry of fine distinctions.
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