And then the heart shows itself
inside the small bloody packet
among the other organs
someone scraped and then neatly gathered
into this waxy paper, sealed, and slipped
back into the carcass
in a packing plant somewhere in Tennessee—
it spills out with the liver, the chewy other organs.
The dog below me is eager; he will take
what I give him of this.
Into the shallow Farberware pan from the set
my mother gave me more than 30 years ago,
its black handle wiggly in my hand,
I plunk the parts: the backbone that I cut with the kitchen scissors,
then hacked at with a heavy blade to pull
away from the rest of the small beast
and curved into the bottom of the pan,
and these other parts, the fat squat neck
with skin still clinging,
the nearly black liver that slips and slides
dragging its ink-red liquid with it, the tough gizzard
I can’t cut through, the kidneys, dark like the liver
but shapely in the pan, and then the smallest
organ, the triangle shaped heart.
Each one is more the history of this animal
than the wings, the breast, the thighs
we humans will eat.
Then I watch the steaming water transform each part
from raw to cooked. I’ll feed my dog
the wiry meat from the neck
and spine, wonder if the gizzards
are too tough for him.
But at the liver and kidney and heart,
the best parts? I stop. That’s all that separates us
I think—that heart in the pan and my heart
in the wave of light above.
