How often driving down those roads
we hoped we wouldn’t hit something,
the goats we’d passed that morning
herded by that hour so the jackals
wouldn’t make quick work of them,
red yolk rupturing over peaks
as we raced the light down the mountain.Only once did a boar burst out of the woods
like a question just as soon retracted.
When the doctor sliced open the body,
soft still to the touch, apprenticed
to expression, when the fleshwas pulled back between index and thumb
revealing the armor of breastbone,
imagine he who saw the heart froth,the heart bubble over like soda water.
Then think of grief leaving the body,
flitting like salt to the nearby sink,and joy like atoms joining in air
toward another living promise.