The muscle which makes up the human heart is a spiral.
It is one long tissue twirled in on itself 
like a thick ringlet of red hair,
dispair is the feeling of air falling straight through.
The vessle uncorkscrewing itself just enough
to open up a water spout for tears,
and slide for sorrow.

When you left us, it was as if the whole thing went flat.
Rolled out like a carpet and stepped on
before the beating
dust clouds, all choked up in my throat,
I lost track of the time it took
to twist myself back up,
was so afraid I would unravel I cinched
that muscle tight, my posture zippered into my chest
to hold it stable,
grief feels like a gamble with chronic injury.

I’m not ready to stand up straight
in case it falls loose again, the wind will
find its way in between that loosened fascia
where you once held me together.
It was Leonardo da Vinci who first described the heart as a vortex
from the corpses he disected to master his craft: painting.

If I too saught to master my craft as a poet,
and sacrifice myself to be gutted
over and over by the carpetmongers among us,
loving so deeply every fiber of a being
for their loss to unravel my heart spiral
over and over the rug dealer powerless to anatomical truths,
could I then, too, offer some insight

centuries ahead of science?
From the hollow ache
of a loosely throbbing heart,
I beg this of my soul don’t
let it be for naught

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