IN SECURITY

If the contents of my heart could be spilled
into a baggie and placed inside a plastic tray,
what would the TSA officer see in its X-ray?

Hours of contented silence warmed between us
in the early morning. The residue of our lips
threaded into the fabric of our precious few days

together. The absences of your hand from mine.
I’m no danger to anyone. Unzip the baggie,
and wear my heart proudly as I would yours.

Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of over 30 books, including twelve poetry collections such as Lunafly (Gnashing Teeth), Chlorophyll (Modern History Press), and once upon a twin (Gallaudet University Press). His most recent title is A Quiet Foghorn: More Notes from a Deaf Gay Life (Gallaudet University Press). An inaugural Zoeglossia Poetry Fellow, he lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Image by Alex Graves from Lugano, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons