Facts learned at 30,000 feet sitting next to a student of anatomy

Blood does not flow backwards in the heart.
Be like the exquisite piece of work
that pumps in your chest cavity.
Be warm, never stop,
catch yourself when you falter.
Do not flow backwards.
Do not let yourself.

You can remove a heart from a chest
and, left in a saline solution,
it will keep beating.
It has nodes within itself
to whisper ‘keep going’
when the brain fails.

Your heart is more left than centered
because it is larger on the left side.
Your left lung is smaller than your right,
to make room. We are born that way,
unbalanced, uneven, still beating.
You can live with only one lung,
but only if it is your right one.

Be your heart. The muscles there
are like nothing else in your body.
We took off at sunset, you and I,
chasing a red glow that outran us.
The clouds were lit from below.

Look forward and orange still clings
to the long line of the horizon. Look back
and night has come. Be your heart.
Take tired things and fill them with new life.