They found a dinosaur heart

in South Dakota once, perfectly

preserved, still held in the

protective curves of its ribcage.

I don’t know much about hearts

outside of words like aorta

and by-pass, chambers and

ventricles. I know that some

men have plastic hearts, some

have baboon hearts, and some

rare men barely have hearts

at all. But I think that I

know my own heart and hope

that when they crack the sternum

to unearth it, the black spots

of hatred and weakness are

small and few, hope the

whoosh of air that escapes

sounds not unlike her name,

hope there is still an errant

pulse or two to beat out in

some odd jazz time, hope that

when its weighed on that clinical

scale, its measured by more than

just ounces and pounds.