In Ljubljana, half asleep, Kate listens to the heartbeat
of Matej curled beside her on the mattress in the heavy orb

of her belly, like a swollen seed inside a gourd.  Head down, 
he’s pressed against the round door to the passageway

out into the loud and glaring air.  But now he knows only 
the red dark, the muffled thump of his mother’s metronome,

the liquid shushing around and in him, her rumble tune
as she speaks quietly to the darker, deeper voice nearby --
 
whales under the sea, sending their enigmatic songs
across the miles.  Here in California, half asleep, I am

receiving the sound waves from her heart, made once
of my very cells, blood and tissue, imagining his little song

his knee and knuckle dance when he presses his way down,
the pink opening effaces, and they begin his inexorable journey.