Making a pilgrimage to Albuquerque
to give thanks I cheated heart surgery
of a bad outcome only last month,
I woke my first morning there when the sun,
breaking over the mountains I mistook
for the Blood of Christ range, targeted me
high in the Marriott, singling me out
to look in the eye. Still asleep, you lay
next to me in bed again, your limbs
visible in the first shadows of the day:
below your left knee, the patch of skin
you wear my heart on, your tattoo of it drawn
from “pictures” of it Dr. Fitton himself
consulted to map out my operation.
No sooner had I raised my ugly head
than my nose bled—hadn’t I lost enough
blood already, coming this far?—until,
waking in the gloom, you extended me
a mini-tampon smaller than my pinky.
Your tampon up my nose, blood on my hands,
I fell back & wondered what my heart had planned.