Emilia Phillips

My First Kiss Was in a Room Where They Polish Lenses for Eyeglasses

Against some kind of machinery he said was for grinding. 

Fourteen and thirteen, those ages of compendious entendre.

And there he was in black slacks, a black shirt, and a black tie

on Christmas Eve. A Judas Priest tee under the whole ensemble.

And his great and deciduous grief? That his mother had ironed the sleeves 

of his shadow and then threshed his cowlick while he played 

an unpauseable game. A sneak with a comb between her teeth.

A true pirate. His hair was parted faultlessly down the middle 

like the Red Sea, and it was so black and so full 

of gel I couldn’t help but think of those pelicans 

and seals I saw on the news rescued from a gulf oil

spill that were sudsed in baby pools with a dish detergent

named Dawn by scientists who were only yellow 

gloves. And I could taste his cologne before it happened—

as if I’d been frenched first by butane, a menthol 

cigarette, and Pine Sol, a comorbid smack that knelled migraine.

But there was something sweet underneath it all. (I was hopeful

at least.) Something like lemon candy, a lozenge I let dissolve

on my tongue. (A yes, unspoken.) It was his family 

business—sight, frames, and glass. And, somehow, they had a private chapel 

in the back, where I’d been given a communion of a single oyster

cracker and grape juice from concentrate in a waxed paper cup. 

I was at the age where I had stopped believing in most 

everything, except love. But that wasn’t 

what it was, even if that’s what I wanted. I’d seen his grandfather in commercials 

shave off half his beard for a buy-one-pair-get-one-half-price sale. 

But what then did I know of loss? And of losing

part of oneself to someone else? That came much later. 

(Although I couldn’t see it happening as it happened.)

It was there in my eyes, someone said. And then I saw it, yes, in my reflection.

When the Phlebotomist Stuck the Needle in Me, I Looked Away Only to See a TV on Which a Chef Was Injecting Pork Loin With Marinade

In love, I am as effusive as an opened 

artery. No, as gravy 

on flat china, with nothing, no biscuit or hardcrust 

bread, to sop it all up. And when am I not in love?

Or hungry? But in that moment, I was 

eaten by dread, my stomach like a potbellied goose

egg rolling in the boil. I chewed my cheek, 

sucked my lip until my mouth went wet

again and I could swallow

the thought of being cruel

sinew, a machine of hunger

overseen by a guilt 

computer. Bright and glistening maw

with a bitten tongue, purpled 

at its suture. When I gave you up, 

I ate a lot 

of chocolate, the cheap milky kind, and let it dissolve 

on my tongue as slow as spring 

to come. Sometimes, having a body

feels a lot like being fluent in a written-only

language, something I could never

say with the taut bouquet

in my throat. I once knew a guy covered in tattoos,

from the hairless mounds

of his slender ankles to just beneath his starched shirt

collar, who fainted whenever

he had to give a little vial of red.

The phlebotomist tells me it’s always the men

who faint, never the women.

And I believe it. Some boys in my middle school

coughed cottage cheese whenever I wore 

a skirt. Which was every day. 

Their disgust with the body unlimited.

In a private browser, I watch a woman bite

another woman’s ass, her stretchmarks inlaid

like mother of pearl. Desire is the blue flame

of the world burning 

into my skull. Sometimes I imagine eating 

the eyes of men the way some people relish

the eyes of fish. Briny as food 

served on poseyed china resurrected from a shipwreck.

Some Sentences Need to Be Written in Passive Voice

Once, when I thought I was dying, I lived 

next to gunshots on Saturday mornings. A neighbor’s 

practice on cameo targets. I’d pull the dogs inside by their collars.

And I’d read or half-read or pretend to and think

about walking out

into the line of fire. Sometimes the brain’s funny like that—

you pick up a can thinking it’s cola, too sweet and maybe a little flat,

only to wind up with a mouthful of your mother’s cigarette 

butts. Half my life has been a bait 

and switch. And my body, the biggest worm.

Once, I wasn’t and still was. 

Later, I wanted something, which was an improvement.

I wanted to make love to a woman, but there was only a man.

I laid still beneath him like a trap door

that didn’t want to spring. And then she told me I made her dizzy

and I became a —

(That’s when I realized the tongue and heart are the strongest 

muscles in the human body.)

January G. O’Neil