I was an anesthetist. I'm good at finding hearts

I was an anesthetist. I’m good at finding hearts

I seek safe passage not still waters.

I poke and prod seek signs of life

some sort of soundbreathsensation generated from your side of the bed to mine

secretive finger sorties under the sheets to see if you’re there,

clothed or not,

loose or shrink-wrapped,

determine whether Damocles’sword remains suspended from the ceiling fan or

lies waiting in the space between us like a slicer at the latticini on the corner, or

is reposed and sheathed so that I might not be.

I was an anesthetist. I’m good at finding hearts

detecting normal, extraordinary,

aberrances of rhythm and percussion:

know what’s in your gas tank and in your bladder

what makes you tick and how often.

You put my skills to the test, never let up

once, even took advantage of my predictability or

weariness – I still can’t remember which - to execute, short circuit, launch

the unanticipated

a reaction from out of my nowhere: your completely calculated move.

You were asleep. I know sleep. I was an anesthetist. I counted.

Loose. I know you were. Take my word on it.

I looked and discovered you’d waxed all your pubic hair and

had tattooed my name on your inner thigh in Kelly green ink

the “i” dotted with a purple heart.

I took hold of what was available as you slept and, stymied, I tossed then slept.

Fitfully.

Later, you sought, found, pulled me, disoriented but untangled, into your readiness

after I’d simply gotten up to pee,

drink cold water and adjust the air conditioner some time around 3:43 AM.