Lockheart

LOCKHEART

The room reeks of formaldehyde and rubbing alcohol. 

We huddle around the metal gurney, 

shoulders hunched, knock kneed and bent. 

My mother presides, roving eye swiveling in its socket. 

My sister drools in the corner, head lolling, 

feet scrambling for purchase. 

My grandmother has yet to arrive.

“What’s taking her so long?” 

my mother mutters from the makeshift bier, 

hands fumbling with the dirty sheet tossed over the dais. 

Nobody moves.

Grandmother coughs in the doorway. 

We turn as she limps across the floor.

“Did you find it?”

I glance at my mother’s crooked arms, hanging useless. 

“We were waiting for you, mama,” she stammers. 

“Well, here I am, stop stalling, girl.” 

Grandmother leans in and 

thrusts her left arm elbow deep into the corpse.

Her hand emerges, 

clutching grandfather’s still beating heart, 

pulsing between gnarled fingers. 

Trembling, she surveys the room, 

then limps to each of us, 

offering a mouthful of flesh. 

We swallow it whole, 

shivering wide-eyed as 

it frees our bodies from unseen cages and chains.

“Bastard,” Grandmother swears, 

straightening her spine. 

“Who wants more?”