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…