Somewhere Holy
for Erin, for others
There are places in this world where
you can stand somewhere holy and be
thinking If it’s holy then why don’t
I feel it, something, and while waiting,
like it will any moment happen and
maybe this is it, a man accosts you,
half in his tongue, half in yours, he
asks if maybe you are wanting to get
high, all the time his damaged finger
twitching idly like on purpose at a
leash that holds an animal you can’t
quite put your finger on at first, until
you ask him, ask the man, and then
he tells you it’s a weasel and, of
course, it is, you’ve seen them, you
remember now, you say Of course, a weasel.
There are men inside the world who, never
mind how much they tell you that they’re
trying, can’t persuade you that it isn’t
you, it’s life, it’s life in general
where it hurts, a fear, of everything,
of nothing, when if only they would name
it maybe then you’d stay, you all the
time aware it’s you that’s talking, so
who’s going anywhere but here, beside them,
otherwise why come, why keep on coming,
when you can’t get to believing what
they tell you any more than you believed
the drugs the other man was offering
wouldn’t harm you. Still, you think, you
took them and you’re still alive, enough
to take the hand, that wants, that
promises to take you to where damage is
a word, that’s all, like yes, so Yes you
say, I’ll come, you tell him Show me.
Carl Phillips, “Somewhere Holy” from Cortège. Copyright © 2002 by Carl Phillips. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.
Source:
Cortège
(Graywolf Press, 1995)
