How the Heart Works

I do not know how the heart works

                        although it talks to me all of my life.

            It thuds in my ears like thunder storms, beating

                                                      these claps

                                                                        one—two—three inches close.

                        It is forever restless as I sleep and as I read how heart is,

heart is like machine—absolute organ composed of intricate parts.

            Heart is solely inter-working instrument—yet I feel deep down,

                                                            it is more than valves, ventricles, vessels, and veins;

                        Can heart be more than mechanism pushing blood through chambers?

I learn how the heart works, but I am not told

                                     how the heart understands. Heart is pump and muscle,

            but it is not brain.

Out of sheer adrenaline, I attempt to distinguish heart’s proper classification:

                                                Heart is not distorted half circles meeting at two points

                        and it is not undying love and not heart-wrenching emotion                                        but it is upside-down pear, aorta and atria and pulmonary artery.

                                     Heart is not allegiance to red lines and white shapes.

                Heart-less is no offense since all have pulse and live

                                    and all hearts strike and strike

                                                            and strike and I discover how the heart works

                                    but I feel that this force, these punches, secretly

                        know more than me; more than definition and device seek.

It is said: follow heart’s desire. I wish to chase this yearning each burning day—

            return to the place in this heart which floods not only with blood,

                                    but with solidity, warm feeling which text book does not describe.

            When explanation enlightens that a lifetime

                                     is more than two and a half billion bangs,

I see that Science blends so cleverly with Philosophy.

                         Hearts are not broken, boys and

                                                girls, who cry blood tears.

Heart is not paper Valentine, not balloon

                        which pops and never pops again. Hearts are not floating

            in air with holes, deflating, although sometimes

                                                I feel heart sink—heavy like rock, but the books

                        do not say why heart is deep in sensation in my chest

                                   when I tell it, stop. Heart has mind of its own like child,

                                                to whom I explain: these heart facts are more like fine lines.

                                    I sense this truth in the pit of pounding organ and I pray—

                                                                                                  I pray that this heart-sense

            is no nonsense; that it is more than picture and name. I swear—

                                    I swear heart is like person.

Heart is wholeheartedly aware.

                        I feel heart sigh—smile like faces, whispering through my veins

            the secrets of imagination and bitter actuality.

                                    Heart proceeds—it proceeds to drum out rhythms

                                                every single second of these noisy nights.

            Under a dark sky, I listen, awake and

                                     I hope to some time comprehend precisely, this appendage,

            these awkward beats which remind me

                                                constantly— I am real,

                                                                             I am throbbing,

                                                                                       I am alive.