You unbutton most of the buttons of your blouse. The doctor places a cold stethoscope against your chest. With his head cocked, he listens to your heart. He frowns in concentration as he listens. He listens for what soon seems to you an unusually long time. You start to wonder what it is he’s hearing. The dry rattle of old heartaches? The volcanic rumblings of pent-up emotions? The beats your heart skipped just last night during the exertions of lovemaking?  The doctor looks you in the eye, but continues listening. “Whoa,” he says, “there’s a lot going on in there.”

Howie Good’s latest full-length poetry collection, Gun Metal Sky, is due in early 2021 from Thirty West Publishing.