The doctor comes in the room
and pulls the paper out of the
EKG machine
I wait for his expression to unfold
I wait for my rhythm to return to normal
he is silent for too long
meanwhile, I think about seismographs
during an earthquake
how the wavy lines
jump all over the place
how a machine
can tell a story
of something underneath
how we don’t see the faults
beneath our ventricles
the unstable places
in the chambers
we walk around
as if the world
is not palpitating inside us
oil, smoke, erosion
they all take their time
beneath our tectonic plates
is it our leaky valves
or the magnitude of loss we
can’t comprehend
the results come back inconclusive
I am left to count my pulse rate
alone in a room
waiting for my blood draw
and a small vile of truth serum
I will not drink
