Tonight's Poet Corner: Open Heart Surgery

Open Heart Surgery
by Belinda Roddie

It's a bit dreary to see the rupture
in your chest after such a night of
passion and endurance. Tragic, really.
You always knew how to treat your lover,
and now you're leaking all your emotions

out on a steel table, while the doctors
scowl at you behind masks because
you're making them perform such an oh-
so-delicate procedure. But the anesthetic's
kicking in so beautifully, so you and I

are both on a swaying boat in the middle of
a lake, and you're trying to fish without
any bait, and I'm laughing and throwing worms
at you like wriggling, writhing confetti. I'm
not going to pray like the rest of your family, but

I'll be there with a box of chocolates and some
semi-wilted flowers when you wake up, with
the needles planted into your weathered tapestry,
and the machines all singing you clicking lullabies
as your heart tries to beat steadily again, again, again
like the rhythm of the water beneath our boots.