A Ghost Heart Is A Real Thing
Kate Angus

The ghost heart was created by scientists
whose soap solution

(more brine than froth and foam)
burst all the living cells

in a pig's heart and left behind
only the protein structure.

Decellularized, this heart becomes a trellis
where stem cells like little seeds grow in the dark

and flourish
into a heavy fruit we later harvest.

The scientists have successfully implanted
these hearts tissue-engineered

into rats and pigs. This is a kind of agriculture:
flora, fauna. The ghost heart is white

and luminous, semi-translucent
as a surgeon's glove. It glistens like a snail's

slick mapping or mother-of-pearl. What kind of structure
was I for you? Is there an echo

that resides inside to sometimes remind you
how I was once something nacreous, a temporary

necessity in the bioreactor
encircled by your ribs.

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