the rest for you

I read the poem "Last Love" by Mary Karr in a magazine--Glamour? Self?--and it 'spoke to me.' That is an over-used phrase, but true and irreplaceable here. I wanted more of what she'd written, so I put in a request to borrow Sinners Welcome from my library. When it arrived, I was surprised to discover that the poem had been abridged in the magazine, with no notice. While that "version" had made such an impact on me, I think that the original, as written by Mary Karr, is so much better. And I wanted y'all to see it, too.
For years I chose the man to suit the instant,
from good guy to goat boy,
dreadlocked to crewcut. Not one could bridal me.
In place of lace veil,
I peered from bandage gauze. And if,
in rage, some suitor
tore that off, the red sun was a scald, and I felt
scalped and rocket-shot
onto the nearest flight. So everyone I kissed
left hurt. One man broke
the table I served him bread on. Another
claimed my heart
was arsenic at its core. When my last love came,
he slid a palm across
mine eyes, lent me his mouth
(a bitten plum)
lay his head in the middle of me, bent me
to that. Nights now,
my face rests on the meadow of his chest--
so I'm a loose-petaled poppy
blown open, a girl again, for the first time
hearing the earth's heartbeat.