Poem Therapy at 1:42 P.M.

Lee Briccetti

Sacred Heart
Lee Briccetti

Even as a girl I knew the heart was not a valentine;
it was wet, like a leopard frog on a lily pad,
had long tube roots

anchoring it in place.
And smaller roots like lupine and marigold
and bleeding hearts’ roots I traced with my finger

while transplanting in the garden.
Jesus had a thousand bloody hearts
planted in our flowerbeds beneath pink flowers;

they could see us through the ground.
I had a book about a girl who lived in the earth
near the tree roots, who cut off her finger

and used it as a key. I wondered if I could love like that.
I studied the painting of His chest peeled back
to show light around the Sacred Heart.

And in the bedroom at my grandmother’s where I slept
against the trees, I was the spirit
inside the room’s heart, my life inside me,

something that could leave through the window quietly.
I heard the fibrous closing and closing
inside my body and prayed to stay alive.

I'm wordless. I've read this poem at least a dozen times since I discovered it fifteen minutes ago and I haven't found words yet to articulate my emotions or thoughts. I want to paint this poem. I can even imagine a tattoo image. Words, no.

What I know is that as the years come, I'm leaning more and more toward icons and iconography. I love sacred heart imagery in jewelry and paintings. I wear a lot of crosses, but I don't own a crucifix or any Jesus images. I just don't think I can go that far. The same goes for rosary beads.

I purchased two sacred heart milagros while in Phoenix. I gave one away and the other is still in its wrapping. Later today I plan to thread it on a silver chain necklace and feel the cool metal on my skin in the space above my own heart. This weekend I attended a gem faire and found a Ganesh charm, (elephantine god of education, knowledge, wisdom, and wealth, he is known as the lord of success and destroyer of evil and obstacles). I have been wearing it religiously since.