Your Heart

When a Friend Asks How My Art is, and I Hear “How’s Your Heart?”

Once a braggart, as Sylvia would say,
thundering in my chest, my throat, my head,
as my running feet struck ground.

Quieter these days. Wishing for steadiness. Finding it
hard to find.

How’s my heart? Full
of microplastics, apparently. Like a frightened
sea anemone. Like a goldfish
circling a drain. At risk of elongated QT intervals. Pumping twice as hard
to move half as much blood, but
pumping, all the same.

How’s my heart? Like a llama,
guarding a flock of sheep. Like a leaf
that refuses the autumn wind. Like a hawk
tracing lazy circles in a sunny sky. Like a cactus
after a long rain.

My heart, a dream that feels more real than the waking world. A houseplant too far from the window. A garbage patch in the middle of the ocean. A cat in a paper bag.

Have you ever seen a crumbling statue? Or an old stone wall? Covered in cracks and mosses, lichen-spangled, solid and soft at the same time.

“How’s your heart?” my friend didn’t ask.

And I said, “I try not to think about it too much,” which feels like nothing less than a goddamn shame.

Once the misunderstanding was sorted the conversation moved on, but my heart remained. Like a child with their hand up. Like the ghosts of everyone I’ve lost. Like an insect crawling up my pants leg, humble-bragging on the way.

I am, Sylvia’s heart said.

Still here, mine replies.

So… how’s your heart?