Heart Poem by Effie Yalena Steyn

Vitriol, hyaline and half-empty
reflected in a circle- once a veteran of many storms, and
together they sway in the afternoon's manufactured heat.

Tentatively cotton falls and flowers
on murky woollen-back jute,
and seamlessly they lie as overhead a blizzard swirls.

Metal, cold and unforgiving, holds us
tight in this shapely cocoon that buffets with Yeager,
and Grissom's spirit is present in the fire raging outside.

Living tissue, reddened, oxidised and
encouraged into a metronome beat
(one in, one out)
rests in a cavity of callousness and ceases to feel.
Liquid corrodes icing cheeks when you glance at me, but
the muscle, those four caverns or metaphorical meaning,
stays still.
Inanimate.
Unmoved.