Upon Receiving a Prophecy About the Life of My Unexpected Child

I was told your skin will be burnt by more UV rays than mine. I hope this means you will spend more aggregate days under the sun and not that the ozone layer will completely destroy itself while you are alive.

That’s all it said though.

I wish I could tell you they gave me more.

But worry not, I’ve devised lesson plans to occupy our time. The first covers drums. We’ll learn exciting rhythms — tresillo, clave, and the heartbeat — soon you will pick up rhythms everywhere — how I step down the stairs. How your grandmother steps the same trajectory.

We’ll start early. I’ll move your little baby hands in a ba da dum ba dum badum bababbababa dum ba ba da ba ba ba da dum dum

Dumdum, I’ll call you. Only because you like sugar. You’ll have a wit quicker than your hands can beat down on our small set. And you can hit the beat quick.

You invent new rhythms, devising and deriving them from places no one would expect, but that I now find impossible to get out of my head: slipping into the bath, egg running down the side of the bowl, the constant light provided by a late night living room light bulb, the porcini mushroom left old on our kitchen counter.

You grow rhythm as the planet contracts, in wondering about your making and words like “unexpected.” What can you expect from me? Well, I can promise you’ll grow rhythm in recycling and the upkeep of plants. You’ll grow it in small tangible action and in trying and trying and grow it ingrown; you’ve got rhythm in your veins.

Second, we bring our attention to the melody.

WRITTEN BY MEGAN ANDERSON PHOTOS BY EMMA LEHMAN