How I'm Feeling Just Now

My heart feels as though it were a Leyden jar.
Not the cardiac muscle with its autonomic contractions -
I mean mi corazón, that center of psyche-spirit where bonds
of affection are meant to be formed with other persons;
where all those affect receptors ought to be aquiver,
awaiting a new acquaintance’s touch,
waiting to try for a fit, as a key fits its keyhole.

But no one has been able to reach inside the glass jar
since you sent me away into exile
to search in the taiga for my destiny.
And the battery wire is disconnected.
And the foil sheets lining the jar
make it impossible for anyone to peer inside
for a glimpse of what’s there.

I go about the tundra, and up and down in it like a ghost,
whose availability no one notices, even when I smile.
I imagine my smile is like the Cheshire cat’s grin
– a disembodied thing.