• right atrium

how strange it is. how fragile,

wobbling watery

yolk in my palm

ribs bending between

my fingers like pipe cleaners

scattering blood onto

a sanitized tray

• right ventricle

how strange to imagine its first

stirrings, moth wings wedged

between slumped lungs,

foetal halfthoughts that

never grasped

the taste of

oxygen

• left atrium

what was it?

a cleft between atria,

dented

ventricles,

a concave pericardium

squashed like a soccer ball on wet grass?

what smothered you when

you came into the open air?

• left ventricle

did you kick? did you squeal?

or were you

lifeless

like this melting marble of a heart?