"Aortic Aneurysm" – 1/31/06

I was suddenly very aware of my aorta.

My pulse was foreign to me that way –

Moving like lightning-sand sculptures

And experimental brainstem surgery on live television.

My heartbeat was a photograph with multiple exposures,

multiple flashes,

Spidering up to my jaw line much too rhythmically.

They say, when a person falls from a very great height, the heart stops before impact.
I take some small comfort in the fact that we're falling at equal speeds,

Him and me,

And all the usual rules still apply,

Even if it's all rocks and feathers these days, with no predictable trend.

I'm the stone. A self-assigned role, this one,

And guilt will break my fall, shock his – I chose that, too.

He's innocent of my crime, of course, no idea he's being betrayed.

He doesn't yet know we're falling. I'm speeding up.

Not him. Not him.

Not here.

I was suddenly very aware of my aorta –

And I wished it sudden frailty,

A momentary lapse in elasticity.

I could trip, fall unknowing,

Saved by an aneurysm and a flat-line ECG.

They said when I fell from a very great height that my heart stopped before impact.

I was suddenly very aware.