The Teacher

    I was twenty-six the first time I held

    a human heart in my hand.

    It was sixty-four and heavier than I expected，

    its chambers slack；

    and I was stupidly surprised

    at how cold it was.

    It was the middle of the third week

    before I could look at her face，

    before I could spend more than an hour

    learning the secrets of cirrhosis，

    the dark truth of diabetes， the black lungs

    of the Marlboro woman， the exquisite

    painful shape of kidney stones，

    without eating an entire box of Altoids

    to smother the smell of formaldehyde.

    After seeing her face， I could not help

    but wonder if she had a favorite color；

    if she hated beets，

    or loved country music before her hearing

    faded， or learned to read

    before cataracts placed her in perpetual twilight.

    I wondered if her mother had once been happy

    when she'd come home from school

    or if she'd ever had a valentine from a secret admirer.

    In the weeks that followed， I would

    drive the highways， scanning billboards.

    I would see her face， her eyes

    squinting away the cigarette smoke，

    or she would turn up at the bus stop

    pushing a grocery cart of empty

    beer cans and soda bottles. I wondered

    if that was how she'd paid for all those smokes

    or if the scars of repeated infections in her womb

    spoke to a more universal currency.

    Did she die， I wondered， in a cardboard box

    under the Burnside Bridge， nursing a bottle

    of strawberry wine， telling herself

    she felt a little warmer now，

    or in the Good Faith Shelter，

    her few belongings safe under the sheet

    held to her faltering heart？

    Or in the emergency room， lying

    on a wheeled gurney， the pitiless

    lights above， the gauzy curtains around？

    Did she ever wonder what it all was for？

    I wish I could have told her in those days

    what I've now come to know： that

    it was for this——the baring

    of her body on the stainless steel table——

    that I might come to know its secrets

    and， knowing them， might listen

    to the machine-shop hum of aortic stenosis

    in an old woman's chest， smile a little to myself

    and， in gratitude to her who taught me，

    put away my stethoscope， turn to my patient

    and say Let's talk about your heart.