Emilia Phillips

FABLE: [As soon as it sees that their feathers are black, it recognizes them as its own and feeds them more copiously]

the ills we do the ills instruct us so      we      instruct
the children we tell them children use your inside
voices    be each    a little mouse whisper in our ears
do not worry I will not tell    your parents do not
worry little child your parents are here there
is no man with red hair    there is something in
the wall scratching do not be afraid do not
climb the hill the hill of limits sinai was altogether
smoke we tell you the truth we say who’s
signature is this they say I signed for
my mother she told me to say do you
know what forgery is    do not tell    the ills we do not
the children came unto the wilderness are you
ill we say do you not feel well we say speak
up do what I say let me feel
your forehead why did you make yourself
sick we say you’re burning up we say    lay down
 and roar

---

FABLE: [when its belly feels the pangs of birth, its offspring bite through the mother’s body and break out]

each syllable that breath made up between them
each syllable                   made up                   breath

evaporates gathers as rain     as mundus     a cloud
as a cloud we’ve seen before     the same     a word

as a word     we’ve seen the same     the brain floats in
a jorum of saltwater     the brain as an oyster

outgrown its shell     who can tell     the difference
between the story of a memory     the memory

of a story who can tell     what cravings are ours
what our mothers’
--that breath between--
bestowed to us in enwombed
​

---

Husbandry

Days starved for vegetables, especially
greens—the buttered slips of pole beans
or a spring mix dewy with balsamic,
anything unpickled, non-fried, sans heavy

cream, not enveloped in bacon or sunned
in the cheese-slicks of a pizza—we went
to an American steakhouse at Stephansdom
for broth mulled with julienned mirepoix

and top sirloin for a double order
of seasonal medley: carrots that cut like soft
cheese and broccoli that broke to blossom
on the tongue, then six sugar snaps I saved

for last that crisped against the molars.
(Was my grief swallowed? Or inborn?)
I touch the napkin to my lips. The sparkling
​water blinks dozenly now the rare meat wept




​​
--
Emilia Phillips is the author of Signaletics (forthcoming from University of Akron Press, 2013), the Editor’s Choice for the 2012 Akron Poetry Prize, and two chapbooks including Bestiary of Gall(forthcoming from Sundress Publications, 2013). She is the associate literary editor of Blackbird and the recipient of the 2012 Poetry Prize from The Journal, a Zoland Poetry Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center, and a scholarship to the Sewanee Writer’s Conference. She received her MFA in poetry from Virginia Commonwealth University and BA from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Her poetry appears in many journals, including AGNI, The Collagist, Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Gulf Coast, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Indiana Review, The Kenyon Review, Sycamore Review, and Third Coast; and her reviews have been published in Blackbird, The Journal, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.