2 June 2004 | Vol. 4, No. 2
Heart Part Two
What is the shape of the artificial
heart? Accordion or tin toy wind-up bird,
artichoke or closed fist.
Perhaps it is the smallest version
of Paraguay imaginable.
What makes some of us
embrace the under-
pinnings of skin, all that surrounds
the skeleton, the blood, the cloudy tissue
woven to muscle,
the nerves and the sputum,
the spinal cord's cavity
and its own soft brine?
Terrified of the physical
body I prefer to picture
myself reduced to safer
objects:
joints like piano keys, vascular
system of southern ivy, tendons of rubber
bands and twine,
a singing thrush of a heart.
About the author:
Allison Titus's work has previously appeared in Indiana Review and Brooklyn Review.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Allison Titus at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 4, No. 2, where "Heart Part Two" ran on June 2, 2004. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
