Her heart is a steering wheel  
       with no grip.     Look at the seams 
between the valves –  

almost invisible.  

Reach under her ribs 
& slip both hands  
                     on the pumping pulse. 

Her arterial piston’s playlist  
is curated in the left ventricle.  
Do you want to put in            a request? 

This is her pulmonary     guidance system. 

Where to?  
What is your destination? 

Hold the power          of the superior 
             vena cava in your palm,  
let it pull you  
        into the front seat. 

       Give in to the raw interior. 
Red leather language        luxuriates  
her stitching into your skin. 

If you drive far enough        her imprint  
never  
fades.  

Ribs are what they call themselves: a cage.  

Alyssa Beckitt holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and an MFA from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Her work values the power of language and poetry to interrogate and critique what it means to be a human existing in late-stage capitalism. She is a Best of the Net nominee, and her work can be found in Four Way Review, Red Rock Review, Signet Magazine, Bullshit Lit, Waccamaw, Beaver Mag, and forthcoming in Quartz Literary.