Refrain

Abstract

Refrain Carl Phillips (bio) My fortress has many windows; from this one,I can tell the tide's going out, I can see the small, purplish flowers,further up from the water, that you never stopped calling sea-thistle, though that's still not right. The ring of aspensthat surround my fortress, that of course know nothing of east orwest or love when scattered in all its countless definitions, form a natural palisade that, in leafless months, can seem especiallysevere but somehow, as well, inviting, how forgiveness might lookin the face, say, if it had a face, and forgiveness were real. My fortress is cold and windless; it's a choice,not to step from it. I believe in gift as much, I think, as I believein mastery. Even your mistakes were delicate. [End Page 742] Carl Phillips Carl Phillips is the author of Then the War, which received the Pulitzer Prize. His next book, Scattered Snows, to the North, will be out in 2024. Copyright © 2023 The University of the South