For My Husband on His 40th Birthday

I’m thinking

of demanding spousal rights

to your gallbladder

when the surgeon takes it out,

bringing it home in my purse,

one stone for an earring,

one stashed

in the locket you gave me,

the last one under my pillow

for dreamkeeping,

your name bile-tattooed

across my heart,

flesh of the precious organ

buried deep in the dirt

of the old angel-wing begonia

that’s flowered our marriage,

spindly reaching for the sun.