BLEEDING HEART
BLEEDING HEARTDicentra spectabilis
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?
Tina Turner
Little pink hearts dangle gracefully
from arching stems, bob and dance
in the soft May wind. Each one
is identical to the next one in line,
as if a child has cut them out of folded
construction paper. And what a construct;
love, that is. Remember in the cartoons
how a throbbing heart would leap out
of Olive Oyl’s chest aiming like a dart
at Popeye? Remember how you left
your apartment after the first night
we spent together and came back
with a fistful of wildflowers from down
by the pond? These dripping hearts,
each with a white tear on the end,
bend and sieve the air, this second
spring that you’re not here.
~Barbara Crooker
