PUNK POETRY: grew a new heart by Linda M Crate

they say mary wollstonecraft shelley

kept her husband's heart wrapped

in his poetry,

maybe love and poetry aren't dead

after all;

but if i had your heart in my hands

after you died it's because

i carved it out

because the love here is more dead

than mary herself—

my heart turned indifferent, angry,

cruel, and dark at the sound of your name

when your poured your lies out insisting

lust was love but you never loved me;

i gave you my naked soul when you

only craved my naked body

like some carnal devourer of temples—

don't worry i grew a new heart,

and the temple has been cleansed with fire;

your darkness cannot find me any longer

but my rage will burn you with those

orange knots of sunlight

that tangoed with my hair that you photographed once.

-linda m. crate