The 88 Hearts of Wm. Adams

d. 1659, Ipswich

Hollowed by shadow or shone forth
By sometimes more
Than ordinary stirrings
Against the awful ways

Occasion offers, I will tell you
The incision in my chest,
Let the mouth confess up
What the heart congests:

Pull aside my shirt, my
Addiction is stitched, stripped
Of circumstance, stripped of habit,
Confined to four chambers & their flagellation.

Pour black powder below
The smooth balls of shot
Set in each chamber.
Make fire by focusing, take flight

In the off-beat between
Each flutter—such like thoughts
Do much take me up—
It’s said this almost endless

Muscle is our weapon, in & out
It goes without meaning or sense
Being lost—limited
Only by half-life in a body

That diverts blood away
From less important humors
To keep an extra beat
From tripping the flintlock.

Armed, quitting earth
For the church turret I saw a bird
Change energy at higher elevations &
Clear out the thunderclouds

Like a topsail to loose itself
In the sky—my dull lusts
Let go as a fistful of dead petals
Flew round my feet & the war

Of good discord went off
In my chest. I fell with fatigue
Of breathing in thankfulness
For this new frame.

Limping home,
The storm seemed to go over.
I slacked my pace
& was overwhelmed in rain.

Will I falter like faith or
Will I falter like fear?
Things fall
From the sky we see

With our eyes. This spring
A swan did move easy
In the river’s shifting ice-splinters
As my flint failed, its neck motionless

As if stitched
To the white heart of a bird
Not beating her wings
& not falling.