My heart is still beating –
it jumped a beat when
my first cry
startled the surgeon.
Now I’m still trying
to translate it –
sound before music,
beat before language.
I’ll wake in the morning,
in the tail spin of a dream
– and prepare breakfast:
grind coffee beans,
toast bread, whip
eggs into a scramble
whistling kettle
grinding beans
hiss of gas when it
first flares – all will be
in any poem I write today:
sound before music,
beat before language.