Heart Beats

Sometimes I wonder if you’re real. If I am holding you or you are holding me. If beneath all those synthetic feathers there is the hope of flesh, the uneasy promise of membranes and blood, of liver and an appendix, and deeper still, a heart.

I would like to put it in my pocket and listen to its arrhythmias on a Sunday. Would you like to blame me? Did I turn you into this almighty imitation of yourself? Did I not cut your crusts thin enough?

How pretty you were as a child. Sometimes I would like to kiss you on the lips and watch you open your eyes. You always did believe in fairy tales.

Sometimes I remember when you were just a dot. When your heartbeat began, as anonymous as a train from somewhere. It will slow down, the midwife warned. She didn’t mention that it could stop, that certain beats might go missing. Sometimes I see them sitting by the river with their shoes off, looking for a way back in.