WEBVTT

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Many years ago, I
had an operation

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to correct a congenital
heart murmur.

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And this involved some
very powerful anesthesia

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and four hours of
surgery to implant

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a mechanical aortic valve.

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I don't know why I'm
telling you all this.

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But I do because if I
don't tell you this,

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you don't understand the poem.

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Apart from the indignity
of the surgery,

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there is this issue where
the blood circulates

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outside of the body for
some considerable time.

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And I was talking
about this earlier.

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This can cause a psychological
disassociation, a kind

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of emotional derangement.

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And this has been given
the name Pump Head.

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Anyway, this and its
twin poem are for Jim.

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This is called "The Halving."

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"General anesthesia.

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A median sternotomy
achieved by sternal saw.

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The ribs held aghast
by retractor, the tubes

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and cannulae drawing the
blood to the reservoir

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and its bubbler.

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The struggling
aorta cross clamped.

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The heart chilled and
stopped and left to dry.

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The incompetent
bicuspid valve excised.

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The new one, a carbon coated
disk housed expensively

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in a cage of tantalum, is
broken from its sterile

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pouch then heavily implanted
into the native heart.

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Bolstered, seated with sutures.

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The aorta freed,
the heart restarted.

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The blood allowed back
after its time abroad,

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circulating in the machine.

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The rib spreader relaxed
and the plumbing removed.

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The breastbone lashed
with sternal wires.

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The incision closed.

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For hours I'd been away,
out of my body made to die,

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then jerked back to the world.

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The distractions of
delirium came and went

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and then as the
morphine drained,

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I was left with a split chest
that ground and grated on

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itself.

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Over the pain, the
blackness rose and swelled.

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Pump Head, is what some call it.

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Debris from the bypass machine
migrating to the brain.

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But it felt more
interesting than that.

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Halved and unhelmed, I have been
away, I said to the ceiling.

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And now I am not myself."

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