Sacred Heart 

 

We wake to the songbirds painting their warbles and trills

on the morning canvas, we listen to their fluted songs

from our bed, or after breakfast when we take our coffee

like a salvation ritual on the deck. You say you’re glad

the chicken hawks have gone away at last, you’d been considering

buying a pellet gun to pick them off one by one, like a kid

with a bb gun shoots bullfrogs at a summer pond. We’ve

never owned a gun, but when I picked up the binoculars that last time

my dad was here to see if it was a squirrel calling from a nearest tree

I saw a chicken hawk close up ripping the chest out of a little brown bird,

and I wanted the hawk dead. The hawks eat the bird’s heart

and chest and lets the head and feathers fall to the ground.

Before that, I thought a heap of feathers on the path

in the wild wooded part of our yard spelled a cat. I tell you

 

the songbirds’ return feels like a fairy tale, the village mice

have come out of hiding, they’re celebrating the bad wolf’s death.

What I don’t tell you is I’m relieved each morning your body is warm

and you’re breathing. I’m glad you can roll out of bed and head

for the kitchen. I’m glad when I reached for you this morning

I did not touch a cold clay shell of a man. I know how that feels.

I don’t remember my dreams, but I’ll bet I dream of the morning

ten years ago, your chest gripped by thistles robbing your breath,

my 911 call, the six men with heavy gear rushing in minutes later,

carrying you from the top of the split entry stairs where you waited

like a schoolboy to the living room then out the door

to Sacred Heart. You carried my sacred heart to the ER.

I followed dumbly behind you down Grand in the dark

early morning, thinking I might not ever see you again.