Symptoms of Heart Attacks in Women

Published in Lost in Tall Grass (Finishing Line Press 2014)

Dear editor:
Read with concern,
tasting like too much saliva in the back of my throat
and curling into my aching fingers,
your article on heart attack symptoms in women.

How can you not know why
they are in our bellies, our thighs, our spines?
That it is a throb in our memories,
a buzzing worry,
an exhaustion? 

Here is a basic anatomy lesson,
though why I should have to
explain it to you
I don’t know.

Men’s hearts are in their chests.
Their brains are in their heads.
Their desire in their genitalia
(I would say cocks, but am trying to speak your language.)

A woman’s heart is in her vagina
and her belly
and her mouth.
We eat love.
Think hurt.
Worry ideas.

Men have heart attacks,
their chests hurt.

Women?
A heart attack,
well it is everything.