Katharine Rauk

IN THE SPRING OF MY 42ND YEAR
after W.S. Merwin

I can’t get my heart to stop
juddering. The doctor said it’s something
about electricity, but not

to worry. I’m worried. Would you worry?
Don’t be a buzzkill
says my friend who doesn’t have a heart

that sputters in storms
let alone
when there’s an eerie calm among the grass

which, if you think about it, is
God on Day Six mounting
a plan for tomorrow’s beetles.

You are impossible
is something else my friend says to me
when I text her about the mystery

bundle of my heart, namely
the unnamable I know
is not just another word

for desire, though that too burns
in the filaments of flowers
coiled in bare bulbs

plugged into wet dirt. They wake up
the stars in their sockets, while I,
incandescent, am

as far from myself as ever.