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The Heart Is
Michael Carman

Hollow
a Valentine
on a doily
a verb
a joke
(this heart walks into a bar)
in paroxysm
as muscle
like a uterus
in an Upper Room
where Jesus wept
a Chamber
a Gothic Cathedral with gargoyle
a tree
a Minaret
an organ, musical
wood, heartwood
Ark of the Covenant
spirit
(“that the spent earth may gather heart again”)
amulet
talisman
totem
paper
martyr, pierced
like Saint Sebastian
as a cookie
as a pocketwatch
as a metaphor
a balloon
a stone
in a bone-slat cage
firebird
phoenix
wolf
dog
the last thing in the pot
after the liver
and the gizzard
with the water
and the salt.

—
Michael Carman has taught poetry as an Assistant Professor of English at Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, in Poets & Writers community workshops, and for the men of Sing Sing and other prisons. She has published two chapbooks, The Not, a finalist in the New Women’s Voices Competition at Finishing Line Press, and An Uncommon Accord/You in Translation, published by Toadlily Press. Her work has appeared in The Cortland Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Spillway, and other venues.

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