The Vendor of New Hearts
Me? Once way far in time in a village coiled from stone
I met an elder in a teahouse. He proposed, and I said yes
I’ll join you, and we walked together to the vendor of new hearts.
I bought one, an olive, a fat one, did as I was told,
set it on my soft chest near where my birthmark is
and when I flew home and kissed my children
one sniffed up “dandelion” and the other hmmmmed “wild grass.”
A friend said since that trip I give my time more easy,
that my my bads and sorrys have a ghee-ish butter feel.
Look, you’re the friend who said I share time freer, so you
know the olive worked; so my dear one, as I sit here
at your bedside consoling while you sweat out in your
nightgown-jellied grief, let me choose. For you?
A sweet-tart pomegranate, prongonat, combo lung and heart.
Efficient pumper for the hiccup sobs to come.
It’s even lovelier when broken—and whole? Thug-tough.
Unlike Evie’s Red Delicious, when slit does not air-brown.
Friend, why wouldn’t you want to have in you
self-parable, hive of glammy seed coats just embedded
not stuck? I should tell you as you brow-twitch in this dim room’s
lily smell, babes, when a new hub starts its sink-in, fuck, it burns,
and coughing up the old one with its huck pneumonics isn’t nice,
but the godheart can’t live through abscission. How it goes, I’ve heard,
you’re out part-fine then brown anthurium leaf drops on your shoe.