~with a nod to Lucille Clifton, Anne Sexton, and Sharon Olds
The poet calls you estrogen kitchen.
But I call you galley.
Another christens you graceful lyre.
Liar. I call you liar.
A third poet calls you her sweet weight.
Wait, I call you. Wait.
Hold this sweet thing, please. Just wait
a minute. Just wait.
She names you soil of the fields,
says, “Welcome roots.” I say
rotting compost, fallopian stone.
Keep your bloody promise: anchor
my creation in your muddy
harbor. Let it moor for the winter.
Heidi Seaborn is Editorial Director of The Adroit Journal and author of the debut collection Give a Girl Chaos (C&R Press/Mastodon Books, 2019) and the chapbook Finding My Way Home (Finishing Line Press, 2018). Since Heidi started writing in 2016, she’s won or been shortlisted for over two dozen awards and her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies such as The Missouri Review, Mississippi Review, Penn Review, and Tar River. She’s currently an NYU MFA candidate.