White heart

This poem was written after I saw a picture of a ‘ghost heart’. This is a kind of ‘protein scaffold’ in researchers hope to be able use to grow a new human heart which will not have problems with rejection by the recipient’s immune system. It’s a remarkable image, I found it at once beautiful, hopeful, and troubling. (more about ‘ghost hearts’…)

rejection

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Delicate snowball cradled in latex,
grotesque confectionary beauty.

A glass seed frosted from distilled haar,
harvested death, still unprimed for life.

Wrapped in an eastern widow’s veil,
a bridal chalice engraved with loss.

Gently cupped with gloved competence,
a denatured vessel etched in air.

Reborn, bloody, swollen and restarted,
will this pale ornament seem quite so fine?

Bonny is as bonny dances, pressing
by hot and ruddy, stealing heat from stone.

The image cusps a movement in-between,
risky hopes sketched in disembodied flesh.

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Red

I know you, painter.
I know you want to touch me,
To peel me from the palette,
To draw me over your canvas.
To brush me into balanced space.
But do you know me?

You saw me first before the world.
Hue of phrase and proverb,
Never a shade faint of heart.
Take care of me.
I am victory. I am defeat.
And I am coloured certain.