Still Life

by Jill Crainshaw

I am his heart,

  the beat

  beat beating heart.

Perhaps you have seen the photographs.

Such a peaceful visage. Still

         unravaged

              by the beat beat beating

                   of time.

A hawk-moth hummingbird mid-air

              suspended

        in the picture window

trembles

spirals

down

to kiss a moonflower’s awakening ear,

                     pulse

                          quickening

        as nectar of paradise

        thrums through quivering wings.        

A nurse,

eleventh hour of a twelve hour shift,

pauses. Looks out through the window

exhales

turns inward. Tender

eyes alight on his face. She touches two fingers

to a small wrist.

        She counts my pulsating surges

              one two,

                           three four

                   thirteen fourteen   fifteen

Mama cradles the child whose

body cradles me. I am

                                    his heart.

Suspended in a tornado’s eye. Still.

          She hears me

as another night ascends and

falling rain begins to

              beat beat   beat

              on the window pane.

* * * * *

Author's Note: "Still Life" is a poem I wrote just prior to Charlie Gard's death. The poem is a kind of persona poem written from the perspective of Charlie's heart. My own heart aches for Charlie's family.

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She enjoys exploring how words give voice to unexpected ideas, insights and visions.