Cisneros - God Breaks the Heart


God Breaks the Heart Again and Again Until It Stays Open

(after a quote from Sufi Inayat Khan)

But what if my heart is a 7-Eleven after its third daytime holdup in a week?
What if my heart is a pinata trashed to tissue and peppermint shrapnel?
What if my heart is a peeled mango bearing an emerald housefly?
What if my heart is an air conditioner weeping a rosary of rusty tears?
What if my heart is Sebastiao Salgado's sinkhole swallowing another child?
What of my heart is Death Valley in wide-view Cinemascope?
What if my heart is a chupacabra black star swallowing the cosmos?
What if my heart is the creepy uncle's yawning zipper?
What if my heart is a Pentecostal babbling a river of tongues?
What if my heart is the cross-eyed Jesus bought at the Poteet flea market?
What if my heart is El Paso, Texas, in bed with the corpse of Ciudad Juarez?
What if my heart is unhinged from the weight of its lice-ridden wings?
What then for an encore, oh my soul, when you have blessed me a hundredfold?

by Sandra Cisneros

from Huizache: The Magazine of Latino Culture. University of Houston-Victoria

As heard on Texas Poets Podcast, January, 2016