glistening, skinned fruit – they lie on the dissecting trays
still and unmoving, like disciplined children. fluking tubes,
arteries stopped mid-squirm beneath the slicker of flesh, and
unreleased thumps held back like hiccups. i look outside at
the papery dead insects on the sill, cast-off pianissimos of shuck
and skeleton. they tremble in cobwebs, like prayers in a big church
and the hearts are red and amphibian in their cold, refrigerated
bloodlessness.
we push our thumbs all the way down the canals and thoroughfares
of the organ, until we meet an icy crunch, as they are not completely
unthawed. pale, squeamish faces, knuckles on the stainless steel tables.
you make a face as you hold the heart – lobed, pinched, pink, the warmed
flesh starts to smell a little, the smell of stale romance and
unwritten loveletters.
snipping scalpels, following the veins and tributaries, bloody
latex – we pass the heart around the table, strange and pillaged,
shedding itself, rotten blossom. slipping from our grip and
wriggling like some great escapist. its chambers red, plush,
curtained, secret and blooming and not yet discovered, like the
beds of adulterers. we learn about systole and diastole, and
we listen to the heart, as if it will remember its voice again and
sound out its bloody syllables.
I let you open it up, completely, so that the soft darkrooms of flesh
gape open like yawning cats. purkinje fibers parting nets, the weary
passages finally disclosed and the unfrozen blood dripping dark
and red – cooled passion on wax paper.
our slippery latex hands touch for a moment, the windows let in
the cold, instant winter light, and the heart slides sideways. I smile
at how pale you are and the hearts in the room let out all their pent-up
desires, dreams, worries, and fears, like stories finally told, like held breath
finally released.
And also that sometimes it seemed like, as absolutely amazing as the imagery was, sometimes it seemed as though it lacked direction, if that makes sense. But seriously, this was absolutely amazing, for sure 
