Katherine Phillips, a metaphysical poet from the seventeenth century expresses the significance of female friendships in her poem, “To My Excellent Lucasia, on Our Friendship.” The poem explores Phillips platonic love for Lucasia through the use of spiritual and physical imagery. Phillips platonic love of Lucasia is depicted through imagery of the human body as she explains that she was but a “carcass breathed, and walked, and slept,” before she found their friendship(l.5). The imagery of the human body accompanied by an overwhelming amount of soul love creates a contrast between platonic and erotic love. Although Phillips is expressing her friendship with Lucasia, she describes it as supporting her physical body. As a result of their friendship, Lucasia “now inspires, cures, and supplies,/ and guides [her] darkened breast”(l.13-14). Through this imagery the two friends seem to become one in spirit and body while Phillips declares that she does not belong to Lucasia, but she is her (l.4). This idea is furthered as Phillips claims that together they become “immortal as our soul”(l.24). Therefore, Phillips uses physical imagery to express that their souls have become one thus, together they guide each others physical bodies throughout their earthly lives.