Palpitations

Her cheek felt smooth and cold on the stone,
but that wasn't what enticed her to stay; 
it was the steady beat
that radiated from something so solid. 
She was no animist, 
but she felt a pulse in that pillar
that was life-bearing, 
familiar, 
for it was the rhythm
she had been dancing to 
for eighteen years. 
It was not only contained in that stone, 
but it embraced her universe--
perpetually reciprocal to the electricity in her heart.
 
Her mind steadied as she felt the beat on her cheekbone 
but the current in her veins experienced a short. 
She had, what the doctors call, 
a palpitation. 
The short sent her heart beating 
for one tantalizing, breathtaking moment, 
and then, an awakening--
the rhythm that had dominated her existence since 
her mother's womb was 
changing. 
Her heart's sporadic throbbing
was only a symptom
of the cosmos
shifting.