Chambers and valves

I know someone who is having open heart surgery tomorrow.

It's hard to wrap my mind around it. The way someone,

a highly trained someone, will crack Bill's chest,

put his heart on bypass -- his life hooked to a machine,

his heart will be touch, valves will be replaced,

then he will be sealed back together layer by layer,

until stapling one side of his skin to the other.

It's mind boggling. What people and their tools can now do.

But when I think about Bill, and especially his Lorene,

I am reminded that we all go through open heart

surgery all the time. We all have congenital heart failure,

holes and flaps that don't quite work. And now would be

the time in the poem when I could list anorexic daughters,

sons who commit suicide, dogs who run away and never come back.

I could tell you about my mother's face when she died,

or the story I just heard about a mother bleeding out in childbirth.

But that is not what this poem is about. This poem is about

the surgeon in all of us. How we know when to knock

on someone else's ribs, how we gently pry open the latticed cage,

how we say -- with words and actions, with a softness in our eyes --

I will hold your heart. I will put my thumb in the hole.

Here, breathe through my arteries. Sit in my chamber.

Rest, let the thub dubbing stop. I will be your bypass.

Your blood can flow through me for now.

With thanks to Lorene, who has healed my heart so many times.