Aorta

When my mother died, my heart shrank
to the size of a pea.

A blue whale has a heart the size of a small car
with arteries you could swim through, but it beats
only twice a minute.

I’m writing poetry on an empty stomach
in a room where snow on the windowsill
forms a perfect Picasso.

Guernica in ice crystal.

Sometimes I post vicious updates on Facebook
that are supposedly about no one
or buy things I don’t need.

Self-pity with a golden edge.

In Japan, people learn to deal with natural disasters
by hiding under a table during an earthquake
and bracing themselves for a typhoon.

After all, there isn’t much more you can do.

In the same way, I am preparing myself
when in my dreams I fall into abysses
waking up just before I hit the ground.

This poem was published by The Heartland Society of Woman Writers in their anthology (W)Holes.