Clear nights spent curled together in the silkweed,
mist of insect chatter, curtain of heat, the haunt of water
that used to be here, weight of a planet against our backs.
All of them dizzying our heads. We were in the middle of something
important. Split, lingering in the blind, liquid moment.
Sun and moon smooth stones in our exact periphera. A bird
announcing too early it has made it through the night.
Heart seeping open like a wet tea leaf as I bent forward—my
departure was not an unloving, nor was the bitten tongue
in your own delicate mouth.
–
Hayley Phillips is a Ph.D. student at Louisiana State University and she received her MFA from Randolph College in 2021. More of her work can be found in New Note Poetry, Beltway Poetry Review, and Across the Margin, and she currently lives in Baton Rouge with her husband and two dogs.