Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka

Echo—Testing My Heart

I saw gutted buildings. Red River came

above its flood stage, up to twenty-six

fire-tinted feet. I watched my heart beat,

pump blood on the computer screen. My blood

was blue, my blood was red. The surges came

strikingly fast. A spilling lightning stormed

through the valves, opening, closing them.

The mitral valve, untamed galloping horse.                                

The aortic, swishing like a ghost train.                                       

When those two sounds were lost, a gulping frog—

tricuspid valve I heard. Waves, spikes, walls, gates.

Dangers lurking in the sounds, in the waves.

They are over, both news and test. The echo

of valves and fires in red rivers stays.


Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka resides in Maryland, USA. Her poems, written either in English or Polish, have been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies in the USA, Ireland, and Poland. She is the translator for two bilingual poetry books by Lidia Kosk: niedosyt / reshapings and Słodka woda, słona woda/ Sweet Water, Salt Water. Danuta is an editor of Loch Raven Review.