Joanna Pham

AN EDUCATION ON IDIOMS

Tell me how: best to eat

this beating heart.

They swallow that of cobras

and they swear on other halves

of venomous snakes.

Hearts have been done and devoured—

but yours—yours is a little

less little

these days.

This hole in my chest

is reckless, I know so

I should just learn

how best: to be happy

for you.

I should

but I still

under the hungriest

of seagulls

ache and wait

a little longer

for my next meal.

Joanna Pham lives in San Francisco, California. Her poem, “Five Islands,” was a finalist for the 2016 Alfred Lambourne Prize in poetry. Other poems have appeared in New York Quarterly, Ellipsis…Literature and Art, La Tolteca, and A Capella Zoo. She is always on the hunt for oysters.

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