Cohesion

 

The day you removed the cadaver’s 

heart

from its taproot vessels and 

lung lined bed

 

it filled both hands

with an earthen weight — 

unmistakably carnal,

unnervingly still.

 

As your own heart beat wildly nearby

you opened it,  

tracing its chambered map

for revelation

 

but instead of 

secrets

 

it held a circuitous dream

and fell like a tree

or a fist

 

its curling courses

pointing again and again

to the rooted

cohesion 

of what circles

 

and still runs 

in its generous, animate arc

within you

promising nothing 

but what transpires

 

and returning always

to an unbroken 

thrumming

 

that reaches with leaves

through a limitless sky.