Whoosh whoosh whoosh
“Feel it?”
Put the back of your hand over it
Hold it there
You’ll feel it
The thrill.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh
My knuckles grazed the skin of his arm
Tattooed, darker than mine
They hovered, hesitating
Whoosh whoosh whoosh
Underneath my hand
I felt the thrill.
Twenty-six
He heard the thrill
He was twenty-six
Whoosh whoosh whoosh
His heart in his ears
Loud
Eyes down the barrel of a gun.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh—
Now here
No kidneys
Taken
By the gun.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh
A snake slithered up his arm
The aneurysm
The fistula—
“They twist his artery and vein together to gain access”
Twisted
So twisted
Tortuous, tortured, up his arm, this tortured boy
His heart on a screen.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh
“Do you need me to leave? It disrupts the echo.”
He is only a boy, he is twenty-six
“Take a listen.”
I press my stethoscope to his chest
Cold on warm on beating muscle
Squeezing, straining, striving
Beneath my metal touch.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh
I am twenty-three, listening to his heart
I see it on the screen
“My body is hurting.”
Whoosh whoosh whoosh
I feel my own heart thud in my chest
My heart, through my ears
His heart, through my ears
I see a different life for him
I see the barrel of the gun
I feel the thrill
I see the screen
I hear the heart
It all becomes one—
Whoosh
Whoosh
Whoosh.
Art by Grace Wu, MS4
