Duplex for My Organ Recipient

Artwork by Kate Ma, staff artist

after Jericho Brown

the warmest mode of transit is the organ.

i tidy the overgrowth, anticipating.

a heart overgrown with untidy rooms;

its timorous gait, salted with longing.

i’m longing to salt my lungs with breath

& drain these heavy bones, all for you.

for you, i am all bone-tender heaviness,

a delicate, coppered vessel, some carrier.

the vessel is a delicate role, to be carried

like eggs that cling & collect over glass.

i recollect, re-cling, re-coil into a love poem.

are you alive yet? are you waiting for me?

some paths wait to come alive or to cross. i’ll

ready life, that bird, warm with grateful song.

gratitude is a precursor that sings to you:

the warmest mode of transit is the organ.

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Kate Ma is a high school senior from North Carolina who is passionate about music and art. In her free time, she enjoys drawing, playing clarinet and piano, as well as singing (very poorly). She also loves to read and write her own stories, and she had a very severe Wattpad phase during which she published multiple stories that she has now taken down out of embarrassment.