Rhythm of the Valve Drum

"Hearts are deeper than the ocean- who knows their secrets?"Punjabi Proverb~


Something near my bed sounds to my ears like the beat of a heart. I wish I could put my finger on it and make it stop. Every time I move, wriggling under the covers to get my blood-drained feet warm, I hear it again. Closer each time, like maybe it’s coming from my bedside table where the lamp and glass candleholders sometimes rattle under gravity. So I steady my hand against the wood and listen for the noise. For a split second it’s gone, but it’s quick to come back faint yet certain in the dark of the room. Like the thud of a heart I think. So regular. Every time I shift my weight, starting first with my hands and elbows, then letting my legs follow at will it is there to greet me. And now I think it’s coming from my creaking headboard. It grates on my nerves, like a loose bathroom tap, but yet the sound strikes me as that of a heart. Thudding. How odd. Is that really what a heart would sound like? Maybe only in my wild, crazy, furtive imagination; maybe only in the dark like this. Maybe…if I heard it one more time I could locate it, make it stop. The noise is blunt; the soft thud is what I’m looking for. I stop and strain my ear against the boundless walls of this night. The room looks so much bigger with daylight gone and everything I see, more threatening. And this sound...this sound there is nothing melodious about it yet I can stop thinking ‘Heart song, Heart song, Heart song…’ Just like a, just like a, just like a….heart. And just like that, picturing my booming heart in its chambers, I fall asleep knowing that tomorrow this piece will be born, Rhythm of the Valve Drum.