The poem
Whether it was putting in an extra beat, or leaving one out, I couldn't tell. My heart seemed to have forgotten everything it ever knew about timing and co-ordination in its efforts to get through to someone on the other side of a wall. As I lay in bed, I could hear it hammering away inside my pillow, being answered now and then by a distant guitar-note of bedsprings, pausing for a moment, as if listening, Then hurrying on as before.