I have a story to tell: 

To have a heart 

opened can, I think, 

take much. Humans abuse 

the body. Genetics plays 

a part. The brain acts 

as a sponge for things 

to remember—or not: 

Eat, eat, eat. 

Learn, learn, learn. 

Run, run, run. 

Eat, learn, run. 

Run, love, work, 

run, sleep, repeat. 

It all comes to this: 

Life flows through the blood. 

Blood flows through the heart. 

It can all stop 

like a trainwreck. I can feel 

all this in a heartbeat. 

To open up 

a chest takes much 

expertise. Such surgeons must 

use their minds. 

Gloves cover their fingers. 

Masks go over their mouths. 

Thoughts operate in their brains. 

What they “saw” they know 

by rote; it’s loud, 

like metal on stone—or bone: 

Learn, learn, learn. 

Train, train, train. 

Think, think, think. 

Crack, peel, pin. 

They must remove very little. 

Bone. Tissue. Sinew. Muscle. 

They must remove a lot. 

The past. Self. Sin. Life. Time. 

None of the pints of blood 

will they find inside the patient— 

in the wet pliable giving walls 

where life is carved out and 

cabbages cut, newly reused, 

now recast. It’s too big a tale. 

But here’s what I can tell 

you in a nutshell: 

Everybody has a story. 

Memory is in the heart. 

Love is in the hands. 

—Lynn Petko, Jefferson Hospital, March 2019