teaching the heart
last night I taught the heart, a french
novel about a young man who dies
and a woman who lives and the many
people who have some part in making
his heart hers. today the title
writer earns me a chance to push
my way through the OR’s swinging doors
and witness what teaches me. a lifetime
of accumulated scars upon a stranger’s body,
a body stripped and stilled for one more
surgery. surrounding her, other bodies
clad in scrubs, their synchronized
motion as marvelous to me as any
miracle, as commonplace to them
as every workday. am I akin
to them, peering with professional purpose
into this stranger's body? or to her,
outsider among their expertise?
witness, I will learn afterward, meant knowledge,
understanding, wisdom centuries
before it meant to watch. what wit-
ness can I conjure to convey the
exhilarating, humbling wonder
as your heart opens to me,
and I take you into mine?