Thanks, stupid heart
Jessica Jacobs | Poetry
like for that time I’d banished her
number from every device I owned
only to find the digits scrawled on your
anterior wall. Diastole, you whispered,
relax and fill. But what did you know?
Flushing and pumping like a jellyfish
going nowhere, stuffed between my lungs’
pink wings like an ugly flightless bird.
The trick pony of my brain was ready
to wander other pastures, wonder other
futures, but you—grown from the same stock
as courage and accord—she was your only
aim, and faithful dumb muscle you are, stupid
beautiful heart, you beat only for her.
Jessica Jacobs is the author of Pelvis with Distance, winner of the New Mexico Book Award in Poetry and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going, forthcoming from Four Way Books in March 2019. An avid long-distance runner, Jessica has worked as a rock climbing instructor, bartender, editor, and professor, and is now Associate Editor for Beloit Poetry Journal and faculty for American Jewish University’s Brandeis Collegiate Institute. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her wife, the poet Nickole Brown.
Featured Image by Zachary Spears