346/365

woke up sunday morning
clenching an image i couldn’t shake:
a tiny rusted metal heart
wrapped in barbwire  
embedded in my chest
like a brier or mechanical barnacle.
its ventricle clogged with dust and grease
unable to pump or move at all
frozen shut by time.
mechanical stasis.
a clapped-out clout.
but it wasn’t a heart at all
and there were more than one
a batch of jagged ballbearings
let loose in my body: obstructing
the flow of blood and air.

throughout the day:
talking to my mom about
the joy plants can bring
and her poem about her friend’s dead son;
devouring a rosewater and pistachio donut;
time at the bookstore; a grilled cheese sandwich
with grilled onions and a flat coke; afternoon reading
smudged into an aggressive nap; my daughter and i
on her porch lodged between a playlist and some journals
waiting for the rain and small conversations fifteen years
in the making; a call with an old friend unloading
the shame that comes from stigmas we’re told to ignore.

it’s late now.
the metal
parasites
are gone.

i doubt they were ejected or expelled.
my body has absorbed them again
grinding them into dust to season this flesh.
just another mill.
doing what mills do.