The heart is a wild thing.
It lives in a cage made of ribs.

It cures its woes with pistachios.
Cappuccino workouts.
The heart has an appetite.
It wants to be fed. It wants
to be led to the slaughter. 
But we don’t want that 
for our pet. We let it out.
But on a tether. Bird of prey.
It’d eat the rats out of Cinderella’s
Castle if we let it. Of all
our parts, the most monitored,
the most untrusted. We have
a list of remedies and acts
of heroism. In case of attack.
The heart fights back.

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D. A. Powell's books include Chronic, which won the Kingsley Tufts Prize, and Useless Landscape, or Guide for Boys, winner of the 2013 Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry.