Between my fourth and fifth ribs is a fistula, an opening,

Fabergé Easter egg window into my heart. Just a moment;

I'll unbutton my shirt . . . . Come closer, and you can peek

into a small sunlit garden surrounded by a clipped hedge,

an intimate landscape with mossy, indistinct ruins

sinking into the curves of undulating lawn. I can't see it,

myself; the mirror is never at quite the right angle.

But my friends and my cardiologist tell me all about it.

They say it is always sunny in there, although there are

clouds on the horizon. Occasionally someone will claim

to see mountains in the distance, and once a child said

he saw the turrets of a tiny city beyond the faraway hills.

No viewer has ever seen a single human or animal

in my heart, not even an insect, although I am told that

there are many flowers, whose faint, delectable perfume

is a rare emanation which I may only be imagining.

The shadows shift, but the phenomenon we call sun

is always behind the onlooker, and never sets. Sometimes

a longer, more angular shadow looms across the grass.

Whatever casts that dark movement remains invisible.