Weight of Whispers

My heart gets ugly.
Viens arteries squeeze
sinews bruised
purple.
Faulty flap
a wink of sucking
before the gurgle
of flimsy fallout.

It stops
now, then
goes.
Push my/love push/my love push my/love push my blood/comes back
dead just/a/little/comes back dead/goes
back

an echo when
there should be
silence.

— February 2003, New York City

From the vaults. My last year in college, post 9/11 world. Air, breath, beating, reacting.