Pensamientos en el día de los padres

I have been thinking a lot about my father lately. Maybe is because of Father’s Day, maybe because of the transient nature of our existence in this short-lived planet. Regardless of the reason, reading Sandeep Jauhar’s book ‘Heart A History,’ inspired this new poem. I hope you will enjoy it.

The organ as a heart
 
I want to see the depths
of my father’s heart,
the confusion
of failed arteries,
the atrophy
of muscle
from a life filled
with the spoils of regret.
 
I know it is just a pump,
no ‘virtue spirits’ there,
 
still, I struggle
to hold on to Galen’s view,
and pretend to know my father cared for me
in the caverns of those now-empty chambers.
I want to walk in its darkness
hold the softness of those walls,
to find its sentiments,
as flawed as the man that carried it.