Animals don’t have heart attacks, he said,
I don’t think they have hearts, not like we
have hearts.
Perhaps they don’t brush their teeth with sticks of butter,
I suggested.
Think about it, he said.
I don’t have to, I answered.
All those animals and not one heart attack.
They must not have hearts, that’s the only explanation.
I asked him what they had then
if they didn’t have hearts
and he said he didn’t know.
Then we continued breaking up skids
with rubber mallets.
On a slant
on the back loading dock
beside a dumpster the local gangs
had tagged as one of
their own.
