​Kris Thurston      Boynton Beach          ( Susannah W. Simpson)
What They Don’t Tell You about Organ Donation


Hearts are the hardest.
They have to stop completely
before they can make their chilly trip 
in their white and red coolers
to nestle in a new body.
Kidneys, liver, other organs also lose
their pink perfusion past
a down-to-the-second-ninety-minute window.


 To be an organ donor, 
our son, only 32 years old,
has to pass this one last test.


And Ben keeps breathing.


And the window shuts.
The transplant team leaves.
The gentle technician watching his monitors
turns them off.
We follow the stretcher down a dark hallway,
in and out of the elevator,
back to the ICU.


And Ben keeps breathing.


His doctor tells us this could continue 
for minutes, hours, weeks--
while Ben lies still--
looking as if he might, at any moment, turn,
open his eyes,
and whisper, let’s go home.