Bloom
I notice it early one fevered morning,
a cup of green no larger than a pearl pressing
past the crowded mother leaves –
the young violet’s first answer to my tending
and to Louisiana’s heavy, wet spring breath.
This took much orchestration.
A severed leaf cut at an angle to encourage roots
in the correct direction, weeks spent watching
them manifest through a glass of water before
planting it as one would a seed, all growth arranged.
Clouds move in from the Gulf like great
cauldrons on its second day when a deep magenta
begins inking from the neck to inner fronds
and they separate, edges curl, shy away from this
new weight at the center, a responsibility.
I purchased the leaf for its accompanying photo,
a flower so petal-heavy it appeared in pain,
some number of faces rushed together so intimately
the stamens and pistil were altogether buried, a plant
bred beautiful enough to obscure its own sex.
On its third day I am driving while the sky collapses
ahead of me, the storm a fist unfurling, its entire
structure laid bare by distance. Anxious heat of it
seeps through my windows, clothes, hair. I wonder,
will the water be any clearer when it’s over my head?
The road is level with the swamp, after all.
And I see, not for the first time, an alligator dull
on the asphalt – apparent impact, ancient mouth ajar.
Ocean wind rings paper bells in the trees and I need
to get home to the same stiff limbs,
the same brief, pink crush.
Hayley Phillips
A Virginia native, Hayley Phillips received her MFA from Randolph College in 2021 and is now a PhD candidate at Louisiana State University. Her work is included in Blue Earth Review, ONE ART, Evergreen Review, Appalachian Review and elsewhere.