poem for Dean

Banging on an empty kettle,
and stretching rubber binders
across a candy tin

A wind-up bear beats
a snare, a whistle-bird to tweet
the treble,
surgeon's hands to
pluck the strings

What register emotion:
an onion for devotion,
a vaccination's dart;
none replace
what's been missing,
not the hugging or the kissing.

If I only had a heart.

Sing to me a symphony
of blood and bone and flesh;
the pleasure at the end
of a long and lonely stretch.

Nevermind the violins.

Tap the time it takes to meddle
in Nature's careless miracle;
to change a thumping tire

Soon enough, there'll be grandeur
where the pillows used to languish
and we'll dance the lovers' part;
here the lyre, here the oboe
Prop our grins upon our elbows,
when we finish as we start

Soon enough, you'll awaken
where you find your life's been taken
Now you finally
have a heart.