Arrhythmia by Matthew David Manning

You have wild in your chest.

It’s angry, caged, and restless;

beating the bars hard, reminding

the damned of the damnation.

Let these bars turn to sand, I

always wanted this, but I’ve just now

got the heart to scream it.

Deep in the night, where the graves

of this Midwestern Kansas town

spread vast into its own heart

like black pollen, wood rot. Lord

of the plains, regal and wind spun,

allow a small moment of silence.

~ Matthew David Manning

previously published in http://rustandmoth.com/work/arrhythmia/

Matthew David Manning is a poet from Pittsburg, Kansas where he teaches at Pittsburg State University in the Intensive English Program. Matthew holds degrees in creative writing from Arizona State University and Pittsburg State University. Matthew is passionate about educating non-native English speakers about poetry, and recently returned from spending two years in Suzhou, China. www.mattwritenow.com

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, guest editor for Dec., is the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate, author or editor of 19 books, and founder of Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College, where she teaches. More on her here.