Portrait of the Mother in Three Seasons

I was grown when I lifted my arms above my head.
They came muddy from the river and sore from the
travel. I was born in January, but summer always seems
to happen first. Water recedes and the earth comes
up in chunks. I break and give them roots and
with the roots tie my ribs together too.

I saw her once in October and there was only a little
blood when I fell out of myself. Imagine dropping
over the dam like that, open throat of a current clamping
tight on the chest. The thing about moving is that
the river doesn’t freeze, but the copperheads do,

(imagine venom tucked deep in an icy mouth)
so sometimes you can wade out in the water. Some
viscid morning you can raise your arms as the cold
sun cracks open and finally, a mother, asking where
the scars came from, asking where are your eyes.

Hayley Phillips, a Virginia native, is now a PhD student at Louisiana State University and she received her MFA from Randolph College in 2021. Her work has been included or is forthcoming in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Whale Road Review, Appalachian Review and elsewhere. She currently lives in Baton Rouge with her husband and two dogs.