First, draw the veins,
blue and throbbing like strips of lapis lazuli;
the size, a fist— white knuckled,
wrapped like ribbons of crystal and quartz.
The heart is garnet, yawning reds and purples
that stretch like a horizon across
the equator of the chest. Next, ventricles
open and close around pink agate,
paper lines pulsing with colored chalks.
Obsidian outlines make the shape,
a dark, volcanic black curves and curls
around itself. Opal atriums pump blood
from inner pockets, like pearlescent envelopes.
Now, valves form at the bottom,
as clear as moonstone traced only by charcoal
fingertips. A pulmonary artery thrusts
itself upon the page, carnelian colors
fanned in a crossroad. Last,
an amber aorta, rounded and ticking
allows the whole to thump into an
explosion of starred ruby planes.
Calvina Liebig is a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Western Kentucky University. She has a BA in English and a MA in Humanities. She is currently working on a collection of poetry titled The Reformed Pessimist.