Ba-Thump.
May 26, 2009
Lying in the valley of this saggy old mattress, my ear stuck to smooth quilted slip cover, I hear your heart beat: a ba-thump rhythm rising up through coils and foam. Listening to your heart mark the two-four meter twitch of eyes desperate to close, I trip the waking wire of semi-conscience and drop somewhere between awake and asleep, somewhere between touching you and only remembering the way you feel.
Your prosodic night song makes me miss you most when the moon is cloud covered and I can’t sleep. There was a time when I could sleep beside you, when life was easy, when life was good. But the older I get, the harder it is to measure the weight of your heart against the feather Ma’at; the tools I use to dig the truth out of the gut of the late night grow dull and the dirt caked skin holding sinewy hands together begins to crack and bleed all over my bedclothes.
Morning comes faster and faster – a ultra-violet blur of tomorrow’s stolen from today – and though I try to keep time with your quickly fading pulse, the sunlight washes the sound away, syncopated counts an unraveling tempo turned off till it’s just me and the silence, sitting back to back, awkward and shy.
xoxo
M.L. H’art
