Heart Duet

                                                                         Motto: You see,
                                                                         she wasn’t made from his rib
                                                                         she’d been destined
                                                                         to share
                                                                         another one of his vitals.

One day

he ran out of marble.

He had his sculpting tools and all

but not a single block

of royal stone

for carving.

Needless to say,

that day

he was in really desperate need

to cut out a template
of her blazing presence,

and release
that long-burning effigy
inside his head;

So the flat straight chisel

went  for his chest

instead.

Also, having no time
for plaster models
no patience

for modelling clay

he had to find something
straightaway

just the right height,

anything that reflected

the perfect shades of white

for the statue
he so much desired

to (be)hold.
Nevertheless,

pulling her out

with his bare hands only,

for the first time,

proved so hard

and much more harmful

than he’d ever imagined

so he strove roughly
against his upper trunk
only to kneel down
in sheer agony
thereafter
which, ironically, served him right

to protect her pure eyes

- now wide open and staring-

from seeing the void

and the tearing damage

she’d left behind.

Not knowing

what he was doing,

Having no clue

about either self-carving
or human chests

he had ripped away
a part of his own pounding heart

thus adding
a pound of his own flesh

to the armless bust.

Once in a while,

whenever the good gods allow it,

he’d take her from her plinth

just to fold his arms around her,
slowly, and then,
in the blink of her teary eyes,

a whole heart, reunited,

would start pounding

inside him,

with the two chests,
now a complete one,
again, in the sweetest embrace.