Sensing this deep, recurring thump,
I place it somewhere down the stairs,
or in the basement of the house
until I realize it is my heart,
steadily working from inside

To this dark rhythm
add the pencil
scraping 'cross the paper page,
its gray on white or on off-white;
add turning of the notebook page;
sharp whispers soaring
over pumping heartland density,
above the fateful rhythms
from inside my ribcage time and space

Together on the canvas of the day
the colors black and gray and white;
the color red a flowing secrecy
inside a complex maze of tubes
connected in a haze

The thoughts thin modulations
of a place in space;
awareness of the self
a hall of mirrors
sharing their synaptic light