My Cardiologist Tells Me My Aortic Valve Weakens

Brittle like branches gray in the moonlit sky, I break.  

I return to a park bench where I am summoned, 
reflect in smoked shadows of long afternoon and shrink  
to the size of a lost button.  

In the morning I wake to a lavender blur. 

Life-blood in silk scarves  
knotted into blindfolds.  

My heart’s leaked blood carries on a moth’s wing  
into the open skies and up to the stars. 

My heart lands in fragmented blue-glass  
pieces  

with a blue-eyed horse’s heart 
on the other side. 

FLORENCE MURRY

Florence Murry is the author of Last Run Before Sunset, forthcoming in 2023 from Finishing Line Press. Her poems have appeared in Slipstream Press, Stoneboat Literary Magazine, Off the Coast, Bluestem Magazine, Southern California Review, Hole In The Head Review and others. Florence lives and writes in Southern California.