Some I’ve scalpeled skillfully from thorax,
dissected and skewered on silver prongs,
roasted over flames until fibroblasts
grew black, signaling well done. Though I’ve longed
only to taste excitable cells, I’ve
settled for the full meals. Some have plagued me
with such passion, I’ve devoured them live,
severing breastbones with single blows, freed
cardiac muscles with violent rips,
perhaps even swallowing raw flesh whole,
tasting only blood drops licked from my lips,
belching and moaning, Oh, my damned soul.
Yet now there’s you, love. You stun me, impart
a surgeon’s touch: graft my heart to your heart.
Roger Armbrust
September 27, 2008
