Marianne Paul is a Kitchener writer. A recent winner of the Waterloo Region Arts Council's WRAconteur Poetry award, she is a founding member of Dove Tale Press, a writers' collective. Besides writing, she has a passion for rivers and kayaking, but not winter.

Monday's Poem © Marianne Paul pericardium the heart is a muscle nestled between the lungs slightly to the left of the chest centre keeps us off- balance nestled is a word for birds not the heart the heart is protected by the sternum at the front spinal column at the back— physically, that is                 for how do you protect the heart? build your walls of breastbone i suppose the body has its ways first a cage of calcium and then a membrane shell the heart's outer layer the pericardium thick-skinned and tough to pierce left ventricle right ventricle left atrium right atrium four chambers of the heart four is the number of perfection four cardinal directions north south east west four directions of the cross the septum separates the left side                from the right as if the heart cannot bear itself its own cross to bear the balance is deceptive there is always a weaker always a stronger the left ventricle has the thickest walls pumps blood to poetic places       arterioles and arteries and veins and venules and capillaries the voyage of the heart         the river of blood vessels stretches 60,000 miles the right atrium has the thinnest walls of the four chambers              it is the place of vulnerability                                         100,000 beats a day 365 million beats a year valves slamming shut gushing open the heart is not a place for the faint-hearted a normal heart makes two sounds lubb and dupp [really] the abnormal heart clicks, snaps, whooshes murmurs               sighs                           disorders of the heart