A shock to the heart
As your hand slipped from mine,
A chill deeply felt
More of physics than mind.

This beating, this desperate
Ache from within—
Why does it feel
More like living than an end?

As though it were not
The sorrow of parting
But that first gasping breath
Of life long disregarded?

As though shocked into motion
My heart now constricts,
To leave you, to cleave to you—
Nothing else forces this

Senseless muscle to reach
Beyond its cage,
To beat as though it
Would break for salvation;

Nothing but these
Two diametric causes
Can snag that fine string
That twines between ribs

And restart the thing
With a painful yearning
That confuses and awakes,
That would drive me to you

Or away toward my grave.
A sense too vital, too demanding by far,
To turn back to practical
Tasks of the hour.

To live in this heat, this feverish cold,
I know not how to breathe
Unless you tighten your hold.
To forget the feeling, regress to the old,

If hearts are capable of life untold,
Of existing in stillness
Without deafening pulse,
It’s not a trick I’ve ever been sold
Or have a mind to endure.