YOUR HEART IS A FIST

make a fist, squeeze tight
yes there, that’s right
that is your heart, its size
its weight, fingers clenched 
beneath thumb, aorta 
and atrium bruising 
for a fight

feel how it fits like a glove
in opposite palm, hear the slap 
of connection, knuckles 
to skin, cross to the chin

your heart is a fist – Sugar Ray 
back in the day, Evander’s ballet
Pretty Boy Floyd landing a hook

delivering the bloom 
of blood rose, a kiss 
and split lip 

and your black eye is proof 
that love landed a blow
leaving its cardiac mark 
and a valentine scar

Lucinda Trew holds degrees in journalism and English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work has appeared in The Fredricksburg Literary and Art Review, The Poet, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Bangor Literary Journal, San Pedro River Review, Kakalak, Flying South, and other journals. She is a recipient of a 2021 Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition honorable mention, a 2020 Kakalak Poetry Award, a 2019 North Carolina Poetry Society Award, and was named a 2020 North Carolina Poetry Society poet laureate award finalist. She lives, writes, and rambles in Union County, N.C.