This monstera leaf shaped like sea-green heart
grasps sun through Catherine and Eric’s wall
of living-room windows, creating art
of quivering silhouettes on a pall
of golden yellow like a cardiac
X-ray revealing flexing mitral valve
and papillary muscles’ last contracts,
or now shaggy felt uterine wall halved
by a single brave sperm, head and long tail
like a twitching bean sprout. And suddenly
I recall candlelit night we regaled
our daughter’s conception, eyes silently
deciding to make life, bodies kneeling,
quivering silhouettes on the ceiling.
Roger Armbrust
August 4, 2008
