Second Person

Listen to your heart, it beats in threes.

Fast bifurcated threes with the third beat silent.

Thump, thump, _________.

Thump, thump, _________.

Thump, thump, _________.

The missing beat: what goes there?

Is it the heart poised, in recovery,

collecting itself

for another surge,

a tidal bath of blood?

But that’s too mechanical, too metronomical.

Is it a pause, a reflection,

a pulse-taking measure of time

to consider forward and backward motion,

flux and flow?

But that’s too philosophical, episodical.

Maybe it’s the Homunculus!

Our twin, the abyss and altar ego,

who torments us, prevents us,

Who sits inside and judges.

But that’s too metaphysical, hypercritical.

No, I think it’s our missing self,

the one who completes and compels us

toward the lighter side of our lonely nature,

where right now only a vacancy,

a void, a silence

Exists.