By Jessica L. Walsh
In truth in bodily fact
I gave up my heart for her
carved and scooped my center
left chest the way we empty
pumpkins when Hades pushes them
up to us their orange blazing
runway lights for Persephone
I hollowed then lined my ribs
with mosses of the northern forests
driftwood twigs worn smooth
by inland seas made a cradle
open to the sky curtained with hair
I grew long and longer and there
I placed her in the den of my chest
My neck grew crooked
from looking at her from days
gathering grasses trinkets
I could tuck around her
At night before we slept
I unwove my tangled hair
from her fingers then woke
to find her grasping it again
And when she grew too large
for my chest when she clambered
free she lived there still
a small doll of herself only
I can see sleeping inside me
like a heart
Jessica L. Walsh is the author two poetry collections, The List of Last Tries and How to Break My Neck, as well as two chapbooks. Her work has appeared in RHINO, Tinderbox, Rogue Agent, Whale Road Review, and more. She is a very amateur archer and an English professor at a community college outside of Chicago.