Aimee Lowenstern

HEARTFLESH

Every organ in my body is a heart.  
It is only their relentless twitching  
that causes me to move. I am sorry to break this  
to you, darling, but I am not a person.  
Just blood, vein-tossed, my hydroponic puppet strings.  
No lungs in my chest, just a pair of pulses  
that earthquake the air into sound.  
 
Sounds like breathing, sounds  
like “I love you”. You can hear my heart,  
you can hear every one of my hearts,  
or have you tuned me out, my sweet?  
 
Have you tuned me out, have you turned me inside-out,  
seen my innards hang  
like ripe tomatoes from my arteries?  
 
It’s nothing to worry about,  
it happens all the time. At night my skin slips off  
like rough old silk, and birds gather to scavenge treats  
collected in my stomachless gut. 
 
They tell me they miss you. I ask them how 
they learned to speak. They open their beaks 
and swallow another one of my hearts whole. 

Aimee Lowenstern is a twenty-three year old poet living in Nevada. She has cerebral palsy and is fond of glitter. Her work can be found in several literary journals, including Lunch Ticket and the Black Fork Review.