We stood, in health class, around the cow’s heart
Miss Hutchings unwrapped on her desk.  Inside
And out, she said, we need to know ourselves,
Halving that heart to show us auricles,
Ventricles, valves, the wall well-built or else.
Her fingers found where arteries begin.
She pressed the ends of veins.  Richard Turner,
Whose father’s heart had halted, examined
His hands.  Anne Cole, whose father had revived
To cut hair at the mall, stepped back, turning
From the entry to the steer’s aorta,
The four chambers we were required to know.
While we watched, Miss Hutchings unwrapped the hearts
Of chickens and turkeys, the hearts of swine
And sheep, arranged them by size on the thick,
Brown sack, leaving a space, we knew, for ours.
We took our pulses.  We listened by way
Of her stethoscopes, to each other, boy
To boy, girl to girl, because of the chance
We’d touch.  Those butcher hearts warmed while I dreamed
Of pressing my ear to the rhythmic heart
Of Stephanie Romig, whose breasts, so far,
Had brushed me one time while dancing.  And then
Miss Hutchings recited the quart total
Of our blood, the distance it must travel,
Leaving and returning, all of the names
For the necessary routes it followed,
Ending with capillaries so close
To the surface, we could nearly reach them
With our lips and tongues, rushing the blood to
Each of the sensitive sources for joy.