Beatbox

There is a story in the news about keeping hearts fresh
After harvesting them from corpses.
They beat for a while in a box:
A beatbox, I guess.

Here in this box,
The dead heart beats
Until it is placed inside a living body:
A different kind of beatbox.

How long will it live there
No one can guess.
Maybe it will be cut out again,
Replaced by a beatier heart.

Does the poet need to call attention to this?
Is this not a strange and magical world?
Full of Tin Men,
Full of beatboxes?

There is a ticking inside my heart, too.
But when my box dies,
Cut out this heart and feed it to blackbirds,
Crows and ravens.

And if they will not have it,
Feed it to the vultures,
Who know better than anyone about
The making of life from corpses.

My heart, then, will return to its brothers
Who eat life and make life,
Eating and beating upon itself as
Uroboros or Chronophage.

The beating never stops.