Extra Beats
a Valentine's poem, of a sort
Extra Beats
Today I paced in a dark room
and watched on a dark screen
a white line that was the valve
of your ventricle beating
out an irregular rhythm
with extra beats.
A little door opening and
closing and opening and closing
as you do when you wildly,
repeatedly, slam your bedroom door,
my rambunctious child.
I heard the hoosh and slosh and squish
of that little muscle now pushing blood
through your not-so-little-anymore body.
That beat that began more than
eight years ago now— though
next week we celebrate your
eighth birthday. It began
in the dark womb, a flicker
in a clump of cells that was
you that began one day in
the secret dark to have rhythm:
beat beat beat against
the walls of my inmost self.
Hoosh-hoosh—You were so small
when I saw the flicker
for the first time. You were
within. And I saw your heart
before I saw your face,
the grainy white beat on a dark
screen that made my heart sing.Once I found myself in the cardiologist’s office on Valentines Day with my almost 8-year old son. That boy will be 15 next week. Anyway, this is a love poem to that child, and more specifically to his beating heart. The actual, physical organ, which I don’t think gets quite enough attention in the rush to make it a metaphor.



"Hoosh" is the most perfect spelling for that sound of the heart under an ultrasound.
Beautiful Melanie! The music and mystery in this is so good.