Heart
On the long exhale home,
your blood flows freely again
in an artery opened with strength of metal,
deftly done by the surgeon.
We return home to flowers
delivered by a job that pretends to care,
calls of concern from children you didn’t create,
and the realization that so much can be fixed.
I slept in your hospital room four days.
We changed both our diets and routine.
You mastered the elliptical and grew strong.
We both mastered priorities and grew stronger.
Then came the shock that severed your heart
from your life’s blood,
cracked your spine of conviction,
bled out your enthusiasm and resolve.
Being discarded from a career can do that
at sixty, no flowers this time.
Now you feel rank and file
in your different drummer march towards retirement.
You’ve earned the scars you carry in your veins.
You will grow grow strong again, so young in your heart.
We will be strong together,
we have our own garden of flowers now.
Diane Funston writes poetry of nature and human nature. She co-founded a women’s poetry salon in San Diego, created a weekly poetry gathering in the high desert town of Tehachapi, CA and most recently has been the Yuba-Sutter Arts and Culture Poet-in-Residence for the past two years. It is in this role she created Poetry Square, a monthly online venue that features poets from all over the world reading their work and discussing creative process.
Diane has been published in Synkronicity, California Quarterly, Whirlwind, San Diego Poetry Annual, Summation, and quite a few other literary journals. Her first chapbook, “Over the Falls” was published this July 2022 from Foothills Publishing.
Diane is also a visual artist in mosaic, wool felting, and collage. Her pieces have been in galleries in the Sacramento Valley.
