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The opening page frames the book as a direct address from a wounded speaker already anticipating the force that is coming for her.

It works like a raw title page and warning at once. The short lines turn the collection name into a condition, then shift immediately into dread and inevitability.

The title page — `My Poor / HEART` — and a four-line opening: `Noon comes / I Have it before / Now it is coming for / ME`. Noon as the hour arriving for the speaker, the book's governing figure of reckoning.