Two poems by EMILIA PHILLIPS

fable: [ when the swarms fly off without a point or purpose ]

We will be the myth we make of ourselves.
We bind our wrists in horse hair & cry
with beef tongue. We are prisoners
of a sultry war. We sink our river-skiffs with wine
bottles. We pray to many gods.
When we drink, we call ourselves many
names: gam, legion, prey. We black out & bite
our lips until they bleed. With cold meat,
we ease our swelling. We're known to feed
our milk-cows to the lions, our honeycombs
to bears. We seal this vellum envelope
with propolis. Into our eyes,
we drip hot wax until we appear
again blind, epicene, & young. 


6     The Paris-American

fable: [ The males are jealous of the young, & will bite off their testicles ]

Through the windows of a passenger
                                        Train, we served hot black coffee
                                        To the villagers running the tracks--

The burns were glorious--


                                        & complete. The nervous
                                                                                System, dammed--

By the splinter of a self that lodges in the skin
                                        Of a dream. & yet, they smiled

                                                    With their yellow teeth,
                                                    Snouty as wolves, as wild ass--
                                                                                            I believe
Heaven an unlit matchtip--
                                        Phosphorus dome. All the roads
                                        Of the year

                                        Slid into ditches, mud--

& arose a flotsam--
                                                                                Of thigh bruise,
                                                    Hip kiss, our cloven
                                                    love.

                                        Beside you, I slept best--
                                        With my eyes open.



7     The Paris-American

Emilia Phillips received her BA at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and MFA at Virginia Commonwealth University where she was the Levis Fellow for the coordination of the Levis reading prize. She is an associate literary editor of Blackbird and a recipient of a fellowship from Vermont Studio Center. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from AGNI, Birmingham Poetry Review, Cerise Press, The Collagist, Colorado Review, Ecotone,Green Mountains Review, Gulf Coast, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Indiana Review, The Journal, The Kenyon Review, Sycamore Review, Third Coast, and elsewhere. Her recently completed manuscript is titled Signaletics after a late 19th-century system of anthropometrical criminal identification, and the chapbook manuscript in which these poems appear is Bestiary of Gall.

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