What is this little you inside me;
your growing likeness,
your changing child...
I feel its movement there
and more than there.
A sudden stir, and I know it's more
than this little you...
it's also pieces of you:
Your heartbeat, steady as I lay my head
to rest on your chest, is the echo of my own...
for without that pulse, my own would cease to beat;
The firm warmth that I curl up against
each night, still and solid, a reflection of
the heat in my coursing veins,
for without it my body would grow cold;
The steady rhythm, the rise and fall of each breath
you take in and let out again pulls breath from me
and fills me, too;
This child that changes, this little you,
is only part of you which has become me;
The rest of you is my coursing blood,
the heart which drives it,
the breath which fills me and keeps me living,
and you have become my life-force, Beloved.
Aimee Montoya, 1997