Poem by Phillip B. Williams

The Asphodel 


Yes afterlife, but also flower,
though not its color, rather the star-
break from the pinnacle,


pointing in all directions.
A kind of greed, a kind
of giving up of one’s self.


But not retreat. Offering.
But not with fear. Love,
if love can make of a body


a reaching that does not end.
He had come back to him after
much time had passed.


It was the living-past
and it wasn’t. It was
the many-pointed Xs 


bending beneath him
whom was thought dead:
get the hell out my life,


though he returned. Shield-
less. A field of sky
breaking, breaking. A door


knocked on, then a door, 
like a voice
opening.

Phillip B. Williams is the author of Thief in the Interior, winner of the 2017 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a 2017 Lambda Literary award. He received a 2017 Whiting Award, 2013 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and fellowships from Bread Loaf, Franklin and Marshall College, and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Phillip is the co-editor in chief of the online journal Vinyl. He is currently visiting professor in English at Bennington College.

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