Joe Fontana



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	JOE FONTANA

Elephant Hearts

I read once that all mammals have the same number of heartbeats in their lifetimes. Mice, elephants, both have the same number of heartbeats, but an elephant’s heart beats slower, and a mouse’s heart beats faster; and one lives for forty years and one lives for two. And all humans have the same number, and some use theirs faster and some use theirs slower. Some hearts work harder, pump faster, live shorter, die earlier. Some ration theirs. Slowly releasing them, heartbeats, like a bitter taste to eschew. Some listen to each with regret, as another sounds it’s small return. Some do not notice them at all, and flutter them away, tiny hummingbirds of sand. I read a potato has enough electricity to run a clock or a light, though it loses its charge over time. And the beat of a heart ticks off the moments. A stopwatch that counts backward, and with audible moan, opens like a grave and closes like an eye. And when you see something beautiful, there is a heartbeat. Faster when you stare into the mouth of the city, or the river, or the lion. Heartbeat. When she lifts up her dress. When they put dirt in your eye because your mother is a whore and then bites you. Heartbeat. When dad is holding you and mom is pulling on your arm and hair to pull you away to your aunts house. Heartbeat. So the police can sort things out. Heartbeat. When mom is passed out. Heartbeat. On the couch in the den you should be in school. Heartbeat. Naked. Heartbeat. When you jump off his bike and cut your hand. When the nail goes through your foot in the marina. And your brother is there. Heartbeat. With the water. Heartbeat. The pool water. The kitchen knife. Heartbeat. Holding you down heartbeat or out the window heartbeat of Bruce’s apartment heartbeat. Heartbeat.
I notice, often, people who look older than they are, in their brows and in their walks and shrouds. And I wonder, often, if suicide is not old age.

Hitler’s Mustache

“I hate you”, I said leaping into the moment,
before she could reply again with another compliment.

“You don’t hate me”, she said, smiling.

“Yes, I do”, I replied.

“No you don’t”, she said, drawing out the sounds like a child.

“That’s a good point”, said I, “Except for one thing.”

“What’s that”, asked she.

“I hate you.”

“You hate everything”, she said.

“No, I hate a few things, of which, you are one”, I said, unfairly,
in the flat tone I use for telling jokes.

“I love you”, she said.

“You love everything”, was the obvious response, and mine.

“I do”, she said, “I love everything.”

“Why”, I asked, regretting the question as I asked it.

“Because I see God in everything”, she said, chastely, without a hint of sarcasm.

“What about Hitler’s mustache? Do you see God in Hitler’s mustache?”

“I love you”, she said.

“You and what army”, I replied.

Sweetness

I was young, and looked much younger, and working construction, a job my dad got me. Since I was young and bookish, the other guys took me under their wing, and watched out for me. Jose was the labor foreman, a kind, older guy, and like them all, weather-beaten, and worn out. Time for coffee; the rest of the laborers and I took our fifteen by the break truck, some of them joking and I listening quietly, as I did in their company. I saw Jose at his coffee, and watched him sweeten it; first three sugars, then three more, and three more. Nine in a small cup, and I asked him, lightheartedly, “Why so much sugar, Jose?”, He half smiled, still stirring, but looking at me. He said, serious now, “Joe, so many things in my life are bitter, why should my coffee be?” And I laughed slightly, not meaning to, and he chuckled a bit too, and we went back to work, drinking our coffee.