The Boy by Christine Higgins

                tubb CC



The Boy

The boy who needs his own poem.
The boy who has her heart.
Not figuratively, as in love,
but literally, as in muscle.
Two ventricles that pump
his blood, his blood, his blood.

It’s the heart I made 
and desired for her to have 
forever and a day, imagining 
she would travel
the wide world without me, 
and her heart would be full
with life’s treasures.

If I ever knew his race or his age 
I don’t remember.  I only know
she wanted this, asked her father:
Does it say on your license 
you’re an organ donor?  

The boy, too, is my child, 
is he not?  And yet I can’t imagine 
meeting him, seeing his face,    
or feeling his embrace.
For what would it be like, 
to hold on and not want to let go?
Heart of my heart.

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Christine Higgins is a McDowell Colony fellow and the recipient of Individual Artist Awards in Poetry and Non-Fiction from The Maryland State Arts Council.  Her work has appeared in numerous print and on-line journals. Hello, Darling, won 2nd place in the Poetry Box chapbook competition and is due out in January 2020.  Her full-length manuscript, Hallow, is due out by Cherry Grove Collections in Spring 2020.  You can visit her website at christinehigginswriter.com.