We cannot say you had a heart attack,
the doctor said, for he had done his part.
Not every broken heart is cardiac.
No clots, no arteries pinched off by plaque.
They speculated deep inside the heart:
We wouldn’t say you had a heart attack.
Why then does the hurt keep coming back,
some days enough to tear the day apart?
A broken heart is more than cardiac.
And what to call this reassuring lack
of proof for nasty rumors in the chart?
For technically, I didn’t have a heart attack.
But technically, the scans make light look dark
and science, technically, becomes an art
and technically, this broken heart’s intact.
The heart of the ache in heartache is its knack
for seeming both an ocean and a dart.
They cannot say I had a heart attack.
My broken heart is more than cardiac.
