Leonardo da Vinci took oxen
hearts and poured molten wax into them,
trying to discover how the valves worked,
how the blood entered and exited
the muscle. He made diagrams and wrote
his notes back-to-front in mirror writing—
this might have been because he thought the heart
a secret thing or maybe, being
left-handed, he found it easier
to pull the quill than push against the grain.
From the wax cast of the oxen heart,
he made a mould of gypsum for blowing
thin glass inside. The strange transparent heart
must have caught the light, frozen as it was
in time; mathematically perfect,
an exposed aorta in Italian sun.
But if he had asked it to beat, if
da Vinci had placed it in a body
of his own invention, the body would have
suffocated in immaculate silence.