If a Wilderness (Carl Phillips)

It's been more than 10 days. No real reason, just a mental vaca, I suppose. But now it is the weekend and I wanna start again. So, today's poem is "If a Wilderness" by Carl Phillips.

Hmmm, N "wagered on God in a kind stranger". And after the sexual encounter turns sour, the stranger leaves (more mentally, I think, than physically) and N thinks: "The difference between/God and luck is that luck, when it leaves,/does not go far". And ouch.

So, N wagered on God in the stranger, who leaves him. N feels as though he has been not only rebuffed by the lover, but by God too. That's a lot of symbolic weight to place on a casual encounter, don't ya think, C.P.?

And I think he realizes it too, but is stuck. Just like how the sweat lingers on the leather of the bridle, N could stop looking for large theoretical answers in tools like harnesses and bridles or in the beds of 'nice strangers', but as N says: "I don't want to."

Favorite line: "I wagered on God in a kind stranger—/kind at first; strange, then less so—"