H.E. Fisher: There Are Rules

Photo: Joanna C. Valente

PRAISE THE CADAVER

Hepatitis C angel
organ donor with tracks
sewn to my husband’s chest
with superior vena cava artery
aorta valve & ventricle.
His mother says, Don't tell anyone,
whose heart this is—
not the ladies in bible class,
not your sisters or cousins:
the man who saved you
is a sinner.
There are rules: send thank-you note
to transplant unit social worker who
in turn passes note to donor family.
Husband sends love & gratitude
for new heart.
Social worker says,
Don’t expect a reply.

THE PLAN

 
Heroin-born, ruined organs,
he says,
I don’t believe in immortality
unlike his high school friends
he knows can never save him.
At the big box self-pay checkout,
he buys rope, enters the debit card PIN,
bags, drives home. The time-stamped
receipt, 10:39:30 AM, $11.98/100 ft.,
folded neatly in his back pocket,
bare ankles inches above
the back yard creek, step ladder
carried from the shed,
kicked to its side.
His body trapped in clouds,
gravity licks what it can,
the yellow birch arthritic limb
held with the scent of pine
suspended, the word his brother posts,
as if in disbelief, as if from school.

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H.E. Fisher is a multi-genre writer, writing tutor, and editor living in the wilderness of Rockland County, New York. She is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at City College of New York. Her work appears in Juke Joint Magazine, Okay Donkey, Pithead Chapel, The Rumpus, Barren, and Animal Heart Press's anthology From the Ashes, among other publications. She is the 2019 recipient of The Stark Poetry Prize in Memory of Raymond Patterson. Her lyrical essay, “Ocean: An Autobiography” (Hopper Magazine) was nominated for the Best of the Net. https://www.hefisher.com/