Your heart rat escaped the ribcage
trap
too late to save its brain:
they peeled back the skin, broke the skull beneath
to search for what cannot be found.
Line after line we try
to shed our shroud of lies.
I aim too high,
afraid
not of hights but the oubliette
where words forget to hide our fear,
& then the poem disappears
when
you tell me how you held her in your hands
as she died.
Your heart rat was one of the lucky ones:
She was loved,
not experimented on.
If only
we could all be so lucky…