There Goes Heartache

There goes Heartache,
sprinting between the
flowers seventy-two

beats for each crack
of the pavement. She’s
got pollen, grain of a

teardrop, in her pocket,
tattoos of spiders
glimmer from the

blood-red sweat on
her sinewy limbs.
She flexes at the bees,

they don’t bother,
all bud and no bloom
she is, a rakehell of

nature, flush with self-
generating gifts: tongues,
teeth, vectors for

spreading grief. She’s
overfed – a gut full
of arguments

and arsenic, pips and
pepper, the devil’s
cherries. She stretches

out, her spine a row
of burrs. She’s a real
belladonna in the flesh,

a red light district full
of chambers decked
with whips and chains,

heartache’s got a high
tolerance for
embarrassment

and pain. No curtains
for her, she’s got
nothing to hide,

her tail tied deep
into the history
of Roman Emperors

and Greek tragedy.
Heartache has a mouthful
of murder on her lips,

pointed bows that leap
from her pupils beyond
sunsets, nails sheared

down sharp as razors,
she’s somebody’s daughter,
reared and well-trained,

ready to slip out at
the right hour and sever
the roots and shoots of

bloodweed that grow
in glumes from the veins
of lovers’ entwined feet.

Katherine MacCue is a graduate of the George Washington University. Her poetry has been published in RiverLit, Stone Highway Review, and she has forthcoming work in The Writing Disorder. She can be found at http://kvmacc.blogspot.com.

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