A Hole in my Heart

A Hole in my Heart

In the small town of my childhood,

the 1950s spoke in lowered voices:

electrocution, harelip, stillbirth,

a baby born with a hole in her heart.

My parents carried these sorrows home

as if misfortune were weather,

settling over porches, kitchens, beds.

I was but a fragile nestling, but already knew the heart

was more than meat and pulse,

a red room where love kept its lamp lit.

Now my heart is torn open wider than metaphor:

Anne, the love of my life, is gone,

brain cancer the dark hand that snatched her.

Am I doomed to orbit in this black hole for the rest of my days,

Never to be whole again?

Growing up in Georgetown, a small Ontario community, in the 1950s, we children were constantly regaled by parents and neighbours with stories of dire family misfortune. I remember being particularly affected by a whispered story of “the girl with a hole in her heart.” The tale impacts me still and inspired this little poem.