Our talented friend Sarah McKinstry-Brown sent this poem to Rahul and me today. She wrote it when she was pregnant with her beautiful daughter Sophia. Check out Sarah and her equally talented husband Matt at http://midverse.com/. And buy their books!

In the Sixth Month

Your inner ear has fully formed.
You can hear now. I’ve heard
of mothers playing their unborn babies
the movements of Bach and Mozart
because studies show that classical music
makes the brain’s spatial connections
arc towards one another like the fingertips of Adam and God on the ceiling of the Sistine.

I’ve played no such music for you and maybe,
some day, when the girl you pine for
is majoring in architecture,
or when your brain goes cumulous and gray
as you stare at your pop quiz in geometry,
you will hold this against me.

Truth is, I cannot bear to wear headphones on my stomach
and force you to sit in the front row seat
of your mother the auditorium,
while Pachelbel’s Canon fires off the synapses
of your brain, for the same reason I cannot bring myself
to have your father recite French
or fractions into my belly.

No sonata or tongue or equation could teach us
what we are learning already:
that to be human, is to be heavy,
to carry more than one heart inside of you.

Without speaking, you and I are two melodies
co-existing peacefully.
Israel and Palestine ought to blow up
their road maps and speeches and tanks,
put down their flags and put
their ears to my womb–
take notes on how our pulses negotiate,
listen to how this belly stretches like an accordion, a peace accord
making room for the song of you.