My Heart

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My heart is a newborn baby 

cradled in the secret nursery

Of my chest

Swinging on a breakable bough

Often frightened

of the dark

Until it’s comforted by

memories

Like the ghost image snapshots

Of my mom and dad

Who adore me to this day

Through the code of

Their long ago scrapbook eyes.

My heart is a teenage boy

Still drunk on the 

Absinthe of perfume

Or the sight of long teenage girl hair

Swaying in the hammock

Of her naked lower back

Whose every dangling gesture can be interpreted

By the words

I want you too.

My heart is a bridegroom

Walking the last mile

Condemned by commitment 

Who is suddenly pardoned by the entrance of

My barefoot Titania in Queen Anne’s lace

Attended by her bridesmaids,

Cobweb and Moth

Who has come to make tender folly of my fears

And whisper the fairy songs of love

Which sound like the lullaby tide

of a never-ending beach.

My heart is a father

Whose knees still quiver whenever

It hears the word, “Dad”

And now it’s a grandpa

moved to its core 

by the pony prance of

toddler feet

My heart is the unabridged story of me.

It’s the register of my triumphs

The columns of my losses

The permanent exhibition of my defiance

The Mount Everest of my regrets

The sepulcher of my sadness

The fireworks of promises never went off.

And yet

at the end of each day

Just as I’m about to tumble into

The daisy field of sleep

It speaks to me

Offering a simple, 

one-word message that is all

I have ever needed to hear.

It says, “Tomorrow.”

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