11:32pm

THE SWAIN'S INVITATION


The barn is warm, come inside, lie down,
sleep. Here, no sleep ever fails

in jumping, tears it’s dug or anything
else tender on the fencing’s barbed wire

and, losing all the grace that true
jumping is made of, leaves you, flushed

to start all over again counting.
If later on in the night one sheep, over

another, appeals, stirs in you, somewhere,
something, be easy, no gate will fall

closed, forbid you trespass; what you want-
why shouldn’t you, why can’t you? Take it:

the easy-to-grip flank that has always
worn your mark on it; for pillow,

the woolly side, still trembling,
after; the broad tongue, meat-pink,

for washing a thing back toward clean,
that place where, at last,

there’s no trouble in sleeping, or
dreaming, or in remembering, by dawn,

only how tired you were, how warm the barn.

--Carl Phillips, Cortége