After the transplant,
the heart I married
was carefully discarded.
Is this a loss,
this mythological organ,
made by card crafters?
Doctor said, Bad air,
bad water made
a bad heart.
What Earth is this?
All the breaking.
Days are unrecognizable.
I check the weather hourly.
The cycle is missing.
I am asked to hope for mitigation.
The definition of healing
is a pill to suppress immunity.
Nothing is rejected.
The new math of his cells,
part his, part stranger
a kind of chimera.
As am I. I have absorbed
myself, like a twin in the womb.
My love is stronger now, my husband says.
When I walked into his room
after the surgery,
I was surprised to see his face.
H.E. Fisher’s poetry appears or is forthcoming in At Length, Anti-Heroin Chic, Miracle Monocle, and Canary, among other publications. H.E. is the editor of (Re) An Ideas Journal. Her first collection, STERILE FIELD, will be published by Free Lines Press in 2022.