CO-OPERATION

The surgeon goes in
gently, up and under,
shouldering aside
the brain with its lobes
of coiling matter, lifts
and separates
its memories, dreams,
our futures, the past,
sets aside love,
twinned as it is,

like the heart
with its chambers or ventricles,
its valves, that co-operate
in brinkmanship,
and hangs on
moment by moment, to life;
your brain like a walnut,
your brain like my heart
that could, any moment,
break in half.