A child of, say, six knows you’re not the shape
she’s learned to make by drawing half along a fold,
cutting, then opening. Where do you open?
Where do you carry your dead? There’s no locket
for that—hinged, hanging on a chain that greens
your throat. And the dead inside you, don’t you
hear them breathing? You must have a hole
they can press their gray lips to. If you open—
when you open—will we find them folded inside?
In what shape? I mean what
cut shape is made
whole by opening? I
mean besides the heart.
image: Jim Dine
text: Maggie Smith, Heart, Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017)
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