Emilia Phillips

 If You Wanna Make Sense Watcha Lookin at Me For

on old muscle relaxers my head’s 
      woolly 
            as if my thoughts were

burrs in a lamb’s unwashed 
      fleece   my 
            heart’s spun

cotton   the plumber calls my 
      dishwasher she
            and pats her broad side

like the flank of a beloved 
      heifer 
            I downloaded

an app that allows me to wake 
      up to bird 
            song of my own

choosing   brown creeper 
      Tennessee 
            warbler   white-throated

sparrow   but I curse 
      the winged 
            things that stalk my window

little synesthetes that scream 
      sun sun   the 
            neighbor who blames us

for her dog barking has a wild 
      rose I want to 
            dig up in the night and remove

to my dreams   after carrying boxes 
      up and down 
            the stairs my back seizes

like that monkfish I pan-fried 
      too long until 
            it writhed and flipped in the pan

the dead rise again I thought 
      and wondered how 
            I could ever trust myself with leaving

this earth without leaving 
      the eye on 
            and burning the whole place down

Moonpie

Some days I want to sit in my sadness 
      like a parked car, engine still

hot but breathing, waiting for 
      a song to end. But some never

do. I suppose I’ll 
            die with someone else’s lyrics 
on my lips—something catchy 
                       but shallow like 
                                               do you believe

                                 in life after love?
                                            or      move 
                                            that big ass ‘round so I can work

                       on that zipper, bay-bee—
                                   and want to go out

that way. When there’s joy 
      sitting in me

like some impossible
      watermelon from an accidentally

swallowed seed, I know 
            I’m just forgetting

                       something. On route 15, 
there’s a barn called Gateway 
                                     Candyland & Liquors,

        and despite myself
                    I trust a place with an honest

name. Sometimes I want to crush

      my joy like a bummed 
          smoke I shouldn’t have 
          even had
under my heel. I can keep

                       a crush tended for years 
unseen like a lantern 
            with all its panes

                                 boot-blacked out. Among the bins 
                     of sugar, and their dull musical 
                               spill into sacks, the shelves of flavored vodkas 
                                          and blue curaçao,

            they must have a Moonpie, 
                   that featherbed

of marshmallow and graham-flavored 
            sponge coated

in starched chocolate.     Yes, I belong to my excesses, 
me with this jukebox
                      for a heart, and still 
                                  —yes, still— 
            that kiss once

            on the dancefloor of Allen Gold’s, sweat and slick 
melted Jell-O 
            shots. Beyond

      absolutes, everything 
            or nothing, neither

all nor none of what I am— 
       her teeth got in the way.