Poem of the Week, by Kim Addonizio
A few years ago a lifelong minor heart glitch spiraled out of control. I didn’t tell anyone until a couple hours before the surgery to fix it, so as not to worry them, and I took a Lyft to the hospital. But just before the procedure, as the surgical team was pushing the gurney into the OR, I put my hand on the arm of the nearest blue-masked nurse. Please take good care of me, I said. I don’t want to die.
Everyone’s eyes filled with surprise and concern and they all bent over me. Of course we will. We’ll take good, good care of you. And then I was under the lights and then I was floating away and then I was waking up to the surgeon, standing at the end of the bed with his arms crossed, grinning. Do you remember telling us to stop setting your heart on fire? he asked.
I didn’t. But that whole day came washing back over me when I read this poem below. The kindness of the nurses and doctors. The wondrousness of a world in which a heart can be precisely burned in multiple places and emerge stronger. The openheartedness of an unknown person who, long before their own death, chose to save another’s life with their own body. The knowledge that we get just one heart, and whether we’re conscious of it or not, it’s always on fire.
February 14, by Kim Addonizio
This is a valentine for the surgeons
ligating the portal veins and hepatic artery,
placing vascular clamps on the vena cava
as my brother receives a new liver.
And a valentine for each nurse;
though I don’t know how many there are
leaning over him in their gauze masks,
I’m sure I have enough—as many hearts
as it takes, as much embarrassing sentiment
as anyone needs. One heart
for the sutures, one for the instruments
I don’t know the names of,
and the monitors and lights,
and the gloves slippery with his blood
as the long hours pass,
as a T-tube is placed to drain the bile.
And one heart for the donor,
who never met my brother
but who understood the body as gift
and did not want to bury or burn that gift.
For that man, I can’t imagine how
one heart could suffice. But I offer it.
While my brother lies sedated,
opened from sternum to groin,
I think of a dead man, being remembered
by others in their sorrow, and I offer him
these words of praise and gratitude,
oh beloved whom we did not know.
For more information on Kim Addonizio, please check out her website.
The day after I moved to Minneapolis, I bought a sewing machine. This was in the days of newspaper ads, and I found a used one for $60 and insisted my then-boyfriend and I track it down that very day. That ancient, impossibly heavy machine is what I’ve used to make all the quilts I’ve ever made, sewing together blocks I hand-stitch piecemeal. Story quilts, every one of them, made not according to a pattern but out of my head and heart. 
Someone close to me sent me a booklet a while ago, photos and written memories of her life. It’s a fascinating glimpse into a childhood spent solo with older parents in upper Manhattan, a gentle childhood filled not with money, of which there was very little, but with family card games, shared meals, trips to museums and playgrounds, school days and summer camp upstate. Black and white photos show a small, smiling girl in the embrace of a mother and father who clearly adored her. Here they are leaning against a railing by Rockaway Beach. Here they are on the stoop of an apartment building. Here’s the little girl on the first day of school. 
This body of mine. These bodies of ours. As a girl I often witnessed both my friends and older women close to me disparage their bodies. One of my grandmothers had been a model in her youth, and she despised photos of her aged self so much that I couldn’t let them near her – she would snatch them and tear them up. My other grandmother openly hated her heavy legs, had hated them her whole life long. In response to this self-hatred, which was so painful to see, I early on vowed never to say one bad word about my body to anyone, especially my daughters. This is a vow I kept. But still. This body of mine. This body that will do everything in its power to keep me alive until my last breath. Oh my body, I have not always loved you the way you deserve to be loved. Fearfully and wonderfully made body, I have not always been good to you. When I heard this poem, I wept.
My three children and I were in upstate New York. This was a long time ago, and we were making our annual summer trek around New England to visit family and friends. We had just finished touring the Utica Club Brewery, one of my favorite childhood destinations, a tour that ends with a complimentary beer or root beer in a Victorian saloon. We were all tired. I was chatting with my parents while my children wandered around, trying out various red velvet chairs.
We went to a museum the other day with no specific purpose in mind and found ourselves in the Chinese art galleries. Jade. Porcelain. Bronze. Ornate vessels for cooking, for ceremonies, for burial. An arched gateway which used to lead to a family’s compound. A room with a low table, ink, brushes, where someone used to practice calligraphy. We peered in through the interwoven black wooden squares of traditional Chinese architecture. At one point a tiny capering man entranced me and I wanted to reach through the glass, and the thousands of years between us, and take him home. 
When my dog Petey was still alive I used to bring him to the Blessing of the Animals at the Basilica. One year, a woman with a small clear plastic box sat at the end of the pew next to Petey and me. She was anxious, agitated, and when the priests began walking up and down the aisle swinging incense and shaking holy water on the animals, she held the box up in the air.
A couple of months ago I hurt a friend when I pushed a semi-joke too far. The friend didn’t say anything or change expression, but I went to bed uneasy. Despite the Painter’s assurances that he had noticed nothing and all was well, my gut said otherwise. I woke up and sent an apology, the gracious acceptance of which proved that my gut was right. In the weeks since, shame and sadness keep bubbling up in their familiar way. How many times a day do you feel like a failure? I once asked the Painter. All day every day, he answered, to which I nodded. 
Alison McGhee 