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Hearts are ugly
Hearts are ugly.
Strange meat,
tubes and valves.
Veins bulge.
Blood pumps.
Under the softest
skin there are
only tendons,
arteries, gristle,
fat, wires and
recording devices.
Beneath muscle,
there are simply gramophones,
log books, organs,
ashtrays.
Bones surrounded
by wet leather
flesh, holding
us together.
Allowing eyeballs to rotate on stalks so the other animals
can see we are paying attention.
Tongues that wag like fish out of water
enabling us to lie with aplomb.
And all of this controlled by a quivering,
grey, fragile jelly.
Cortisone injections to permit function.
Echocardiograms,
telegrams,
also-rans
and Sirhan Sirhan.
Keeping us ticking
until it’s time for the bullets
to shatter reality
and return us to a spilling, spreading mess on the kitchen
floor of the Ambassador Hotel.
Next to the ice machine,
that’s where we become starkly aware of our own mortality.
Be still, my ugly metal beating
heart.
