David Colodney
Amy
Posers who claim to have known her
still talk about how her heart just stopped,
pulverized into pieces of pumping dust,
beating as hard as they could, myriads of mini hearts,
each one failing, none of the diminished
pieces working alone as they could whole,
driving oxygen through jammed highways of polluted veins.
When she was alive, her wildfire eyes changed color
with each new tattoo shimmering on her chameleon skin.
Maybe she kept adding tattoos or maybe she got smaller
so there seemed like more, the ironic horseshoe
on her left shoulder branded too late
the leftover heart dust
blown away, lost forever
Bio
David Colodney realized at an early age that he had no athletic ability whatsoever, so he decided to focus his attention on writing about sports instead, covering everything from major league baseball to high school flag football for The Miami Herald and The Tampa Tribune. He holds an MFA from Converse College, where he served as poetry editor of South85, the literary journal of the Converse MFA program, and also an MA from Nova Southeastern University. His poetry has appeared or will appear in St. Petersburg Review, South Carolina Review, California Quarterly, and Shot Glass Journal, among others. David was recently named a finalist in the 2017 DISQUIET Prize for Poetry. He lives in Boynton Beach, Florida with his wife, three sons, and golden retriever.