Embla
This heart is not
a wire pulled taut.
It is an animal,
relentless, keen.
A wet basket
of eels for a gut,
a mussel instead
of a tongue:
gristle and meat.
Why did I change?
I will die trying
to keep all this inside
me, but as a tree,
I did not even bleed.
Madeline Grigg is a poet from Texas and Maine. Her work has been published in The Merrimack Review, Barely South Review, Porkbelly Press, and others. She recently graduated with an MFA in Poetry from Bowling Green State University, where she worked as managing editor for Mid-American Review.
