Your heart is the fluorescent, FDA-pink
chocolate we ate on Valentine’s day—
inside your chest, an autistic animal
chokes on tubes in a red night.

A ghost pulses on the silver screen
like that orange-and-black Rain Forest
frog whose sweat can kill 15,000 people—
more than enough for you and me.
Six weeks, the doctor says.

I know that a man in green
will saw your rib cage, open
you like a car hood, and insert plastic
in your aorta. But what do doctors
know about our disease?

My face between your shoulder and neck,
I hear the sea and a whole swarm of drums.

Originally published in Coal City Review 15 (October 2000): 28.