The Man and the Paper Heart
A pillar of white cloth, a pair of old glasses--
the doctor points a pencil at me
and I don't hear his words so much as accept them,
accept their existence, as if we're speaking
in third person, about a character
whose fate we know
because we looked it up on the Internet.
No, no--you have to read the book
to understand this, he says.
He goes on to tell me that life is like origami.
I expel hot air and promises,
and distract my mind within the crinkle
of the medical paper cover
between my shaking fingers.
Later, in the twilight of my bedroom,
I play with notebook paper. I'm an aspiring poet
but most days I just craft paper hearts,
the kind you can easily forget about
when you hoard them in dust-covered desks.
I'm making one now, but it doesn't always work,
because paper hearts are easy to make
if you feel the drama of invisible ventricles
within carefully-folded vellum--
until you arrive at the final curl of the organ's edge.
At this critical point you must grip tightly
to this life, this pinch of paper,
because if you don't gravity will
seize the delicate act and shatter your heart
against the eternally solid mahogany floor,
and when it's gone, it's gone.
Tonight, at least, I succeed,
and by late morning a gaping yawn stretches
across the floor. My window faces west
so I can never forget the eventual disappearance.
I'm still awake; my desk, littered
with abandoned aortas, is unable to bask
in the dim light I still have.
I slip into bed, grab some paper
and scribble a rhetorical question
("How many hearts left?") before
I churn my ocean of cloth, wait for my pulse
to calm itself into a tangible quiet,
and ease into that sleep of death,
temporary endlessness, where I am
unable to fear for the life of a paper heart.
© 2010 Michael McSweeney
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