Supine Body in Full-Length Mirror, Hotel Room, Upper West Side | Emilia Phillips
“All is seen.”—Dante’s Virgil, Inferno, Canto XXXIV
What startles first is that it’s there.
After long hours in the car
when thought seemed
seamless with forward
motion, & the body,
a home you left that morning—
& now it’s naked & unyielding,
a narrative,
if you’ll have it
that the scars know more
about your past
than you choose to remember—
Emilia Phillips is the author of two collections of poetry, Signaletics (2013) and Groundspeed (forthcoming), both from the University of Akron Press, and three chapbooks. Her poetry appears in Agni, Gulf Coast, Harvard Review, Kenyon Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. She’s the recipient of fellowships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, US Poets in Mexico, and Vermont Studio Center; the 2012 Poetry Prize from the Journal; and the 2013–2014 Emerging Writer Lectureship from Gettysburg College. She serves as a staff member of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and as a prose editor of 32 Poems. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.