Are You Looking at Us
the appeal is in being in two places
at once, the attacker and the attacked,
the strain and the relief, the long
directionless river and the sea it finds,
the parent and the hard stone of a child,
the voice the throat the air they’re
buried in, the beginning and the end,
the body of the self and the body of
the body, the inside, the falling out,
the weapon the weapon the weapon
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A Virginia native, Hayley Phillips received her MFA from Randolph College in 2021 and is now a PhD student at Louisiana State University. Her work has been included in Blue Earth Review, Whale Road Review, Appalachian Review and elsewhere. She currently lives in Baton Rouge with her husband and two dogs.
Fabulous!