It’s all about the Heart,
Not thumping, bumping,
Gyrating in its cavity,
But sweetly whispering
Words of love to the Brain.

“Oh, Wise One, Dear,
Where should we go for lunch?
A forest glen by a gently
Flowing stream? Should I
Prepare tarts or tea cakes,
Pastel petit fours or
Robust German wursts?
A blanket or afghan, downy pillows,
Oriental silks. Tell me and I will obey.”

‘Silence. I want to think, to massage
My memory for nuances once forgotten.
Be quiet, Pest.”

“Oh, Wise One, Dear,
You put me off, dismiss my care
Without a single kindness, ounce of
Courtesy, modicum of tenderness.
As if I have no say,
No sway in our affairs.”

Her left valve fluttered unhappily
And right slumped low. With resignation,
She started her trek to find a Love.

Stopping briefly at the Lungs,
Knowing they were already a matched pair,
She moved on.

Perhaps the Stomach would love her,
But with Gut so gross a name could she bear
The monogram?

Off she goes, left side and right,
Moving deeper and deeper down the spine,
Never forgetting Brain, she pines for his love.
“Be quiet, Pest, Pest, Pest,” echoes in her Ears.

Should she try Spleen, Kidney, Liver,
Asking them to be her love? Too introverted.
The Skin and Bones,? No, no, too thin a support.

She comes to rest at the
Singularly unattractive, bruised and battered Left Foot.
She stumbles on its much-needed, least-treated, forlorn Toe.

“I’m so sad,” she said hardly looking at his carbuncle locale.

“So sad? Why my beautiful, lush, crimson maiden, why sad?”

“I am unloved, Well-trodden One, unloved by all.”

Without hesitation and astounding vigor, he pledged his troth.
“I love you more than the highest mountain,
The deepest valley, the longest road.
And let me assure you, dear Heart, I’ve been up and down them all.”

The curtain of irrational romance lifted.
Heart has a thought for the first time, at last.
“I find contentment with you, Toe, yes, true love at last.”

“And now,” crafty Toe calculates,
“My Precious, be calmed.
You need not work so hard.”

With aortic release,
She shut her pressure down.
Blood slowed,
Then stopped flowing to the Brain.

A whimper ushered through
The gray-celled terrain.
Thought suspended,
Brain gasped, calls it quits
In the idea zone.

As Brain, dumb-founded, flounders,
Heart knowing it was a trip well-taken,
And Toe knowing he will never walk alone
Frolic in the grass, carefree.

Entwined, the new-forever lovers pulsate.
The lowly Toe gushes with glee,
“Only a Toe!
Ha!
Guess again,
Pampered Pundit,
Cerebral Snob,
Your mental gymnastics are over.
It’s bloody, bloody revenge
For Heart and Me.”

Charlene James-Duguid
Amissville, Virginia