Dec 2011
Plastic really, actually,
It pumps and Hemo flows.
The doctors placed it
beneath my breast
How long will it beat?
None knows.
I’m undersized for seventeen,
Brown eyes and auburn tresses
A year behind to graduate
with my friends in their prom dresses
Back when my heart was still my own
before my failed bypasses.
I was like many High school girls,
I slept through history classes.
.Back then there was a boy I loved
We’d spend hours on the phone.
His smile made my heart skip a beat
when it didn’t on its own.
Then I fainted in my science class,
my complexion turning blue
Mister Sullivan saved my life
by knowing what to do.
Now can I give my heart away,
a heart that’s not my own?
Can I feel as I used to feel
when its just us two alone?
Was my soul within the heart
that died when we untwined?
Is that spirit an illusion,
just a construct of the mind?
Will this heart race in your embrace?
Will your kisses taste divine?
Or am I just the Tin girl
feeling hollow all the time?
It pumps and Hemo flows.
The doctors placed it
beneath my breast
How long will it beat?
None knows.
I’m undersized for seventeen,
Brown eyes and auburn tresses
A year behind to graduate
with my friends in their prom dresses
Back when my heart was still my own
before my failed bypasses.
I was like many High school girls,
I slept through history classes.
.Back then there was a boy I loved
We’d spend hours on the phone.
His smile made my heart skip a beat
when it didn’t on its own.
Then I fainted in my science class,
my complexion turning blue
Mister Sullivan saved my life
by knowing what to do.
Now can I give my heart away,
a heart that’s not my own?
Can I feel as I used to feel
when its just us two alone?
Was my soul within the heart
that died when we untwined?
Is that spirit an illusion,
just a construct of the mind?
Will this heart race in your embrace?
Will your kisses taste divine?
Or am I just the Tin girl
feeling hollow all the time?
This is part two of the poem sequence "The Tin girl" It is based, in part, on the story of a girl who went to my high School. She had a congenital heart defect. She was undersized for a teen, always short of breath and always with a dusky complexion. Ultimately the girl died of the heart defect, but not before finding love with a classmate of mine who was also short in stature but who had the heart of a lion. Forty years ago it was impossible to save her. I use modern technology in these poems to bring my friend back to life in an effort to explore the boundaries between the Human and the mechanical and the Human and the Divine. This poem adopts the point of view of that girl, post operation, wondering if she can feel and experience love with a machine for a heart. Mr Sullivan was actually an English teacher but for poem purposes I replaced his B.A with a B.S. The first poem is entitled "The Tin Girl" a take on the wizard of Oz.
