Your Heart

Three times, you gave your living heart to me–

not some idealized, lacey Valentine

in naive geometric symmetry–

you clawed it out, presented it for mine,

and watched as I consumed it, eating you,

without returning care to plug the wound.

You grew another heart, and gave that, too,

I’m sure as its recipient is doomed

to one day wish he’d sooner gave you his

but find his organ harder to extract.

What need have you for mine? But here it is,

no prettier than yours, but more compact.

The heart that’s in your chest won’t beat for us;

I keep that one in my sarcophagus.