4/30

Ectopia cordis

It's almost as bad as it gets: born

with your heart on the outside,

already wearing the medal

for injury, a veteran at zero

hour. No surprise

parties after this, please.

The flawless parcel, adored

invention, interrupted

by this tiny, twitching eggplant.

There was, in blameless jargon,

a complication--all of us, you may

recall, quite complicated

at that point, naked and improbable.

In India, they fixed it, wrapping

the boy's heart in Gore-Tex

and tucking it in, 

like an overworried mother insists 

on a jacket before her children run out

to play.