The Perfect Heart
I wait for the daily phone call
from my sister. She reports
from the Houston hospital
where her husband waits
for a new heart, a good heart.
It has been six weeks.
The call comes. They are in
pre-op waiting for the “go”
to move him into surgery,
He is wheeled in. She waits.
The surgeon comes out to report.
He is frowning, tells my sister,
“We checked the donor heart.
It has a defect. We have to abort,
wait for the perfect heart.”
Yesterday’s newspaper had a photo
of a man with his head on the chest of
another man, listening to his beating heart,
listening to the heart of his son, the donor.
Tears streamed down his face.
“That’s my boy.” he said.
His son had a perfect heart.
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Tere Sievers writes in Long Beach, California and teaches at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at CSULB. She has been published in Pearl, A Year of Being Here, Nerve Cowboy. Silver Birch Press and others. Her chapbook, Striking Distance, is available from Arroyo Seco Press.
Wow, Tere! This is beautiful. I know someone who went through this a number of years ago, including the aborted transplant, so I have an idea how difficult that would be. In their case, all seems to be going well, going strong. May your brother-in-law have the same outcome.