A whitetail deer stared, eyes weighting the heart
the night a truck swerved, fear striating the heart.
First brush with death: the freight truck crash;
God showed me his way of negating the heart.
Just nine years old when the doctors diagnosed my
Father’s rheumatic fever, a sore throat fating the heart.
Some folks wash their hands clean where they drink.
They shake water white, ripples reverberating the heart.
I jogged down the dusty path, body desperate to fly,
but fell gasping. My chest pounded, gating the heart.
They pounded on his chest in the waiting room
where he collapsed, gloved fists berating the heart.
When they called my mother, she knew he was gone.
But the doctor dangled slightest chance, baiting the heart.
I have come home on a train coursing tracks
old wood and iron, each horn blare translating the heart.
Just two lines Geoffrey, just two lines. Get them out,
they’re doing nothing, but—write it!—medicating the heart.