Heart

At first she believed in the phantom heart
something that beat outside of herself
slowly, the way one watched birds
from a window, feeling the air
but there was no movement inside
her room and suddenly
it was there, a heart's thump
and her only desire was to open it.
A lid to a box, look inside
follow the right ventricle to an aorta
bring it to her mouth, a red wafer
so she would be forgiven. For what
she did not know, but she must be
forgiven. All her life calling the slow tick
then the tock. It was not a lost leg
or an arm she mourned nor the absent flesh
but this loss was more of a hum,
constant buzz of never reaching
far enough into herself finding
one place where a heart could live.