Livia Prawitz

heart valves thin as paper – constructed of carbon and metal –
calf – pig – sometimes from humans – everyone in the nursing
home is over sixty except for me – we eat potatoes in various
forms – my father planted potatoes – the fields widened – filled
the earthen cellar – in 1992 the French philosopher Jean-Luc
Nancy receives a new heart – his own fails – it suddenly appears
– foreign to him – seventy-eight photos of me smiling – the
weeks after the surgery – flowers hiding the vest – holding the
thorax together – there are other photographs – a waste paper
basket and a sealed electrical socket – with eyes – parted lips