24: COMMON WEALTH

Lisa Jacobson: Heartbeat

"how big is the actual heart?.the size and heaviness of a handful of earth."
-Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

Today we heard your heart beat,
sparrow-quick, a thready pulse
in the static of some vast inland sea;
unmapped water, as yet unnamed,
which laps at the inner shores of me
where small, washed stones
seem always on the point
of dissolving.