ire’ne lara silva

the story of my four hearts

the first one i pulled out of my chest at 23

tangled roots trailing earth everywhere

it wouldn’t stop loving 

and i needed it to stop loving

the second died of atrophy

withered with loss after loss 

bruised with work and pain and worry

i didn’t even feel when it stopped beating

the third was a surprise and a gift

a flowering fruited thing 

that kept offering itself everywhere

will you love me? will you love me?

the third heart died with my brother

it exploded from grief

and left me lost 

in a crater of howling emptiness

at four months this fourth heart

is now old enough 

to tell me its name

it is my cast iron heart

i grew it slowly and deliberately

not knowing if it’d be my last heart

made of iron and steel melted at 2800 degrees

all the impurities burned out

tempered with time 

tempered with intention

my cast iron heart doesn’t ask 

to be loved it just loves

all my hearts were born writing

 i’m listening for what the cast iron one will say

i know they mean well when they say my brother is still with me

but i hope he isn’t in his last days he was forgetting where he was
and my name and his own name he was forgetting all of it and he
knew only enough to trust my voice and my hand holding his hand
and that he wasn’t alone and that i would take care of anything he
needed i hope he’s walked on to the next world without any
memory of this one hope he’s forgotten all the pain all the anger i
hope he’s forgotten his childhood and my father forgotten bullies
and homophobes forgotten bruises and broken hearts forgotten
despair and hurt i hope he’s forgotten doctors and painkillers and
surgeries and hospitals and wounds and pain oh i hope i hope he’s
forgotten pain

even if it means he’s forgotten me even if our
difficult years and our beautiful years live only in my heart even if
he doesn’t remember all our adventures all our tears all our laughter
even if he doesn’t remember our years of colors and words and
music and flowers because even when he didn’t know my name he
still smiled at me and looked so kindly upon me and i couldn’t have
prayed for anything more at his peaceful moment of passing i hope
he remembers nothing even if it means i send all this love that still
lives in me out in no particular direction

      in the first rain afterwards
i saw him in the white rain lilies sprouting roadside saw him in the
greening of the revived blades of grass saw him when the leaves
started to change color and i saw him when the crimson crown of
thorns started blooming may his spirit be racing in delight from one
streak of lightning to another may it be curled in comfort in the
petals of roses and peonies may it be watching in wide eyed delight 
as the dew forms each morning may his spirit be drifting in the soft
clouds overhead may it be visiting the snow covered chollas
blooming a soft yellow may his spirit be running with the howling
of the coyotes i heard tonight and last night and the night before