How tiny is your heart Small Dog? Is it the size of a walnut or a plum? Does it soften with pleasure and grow taut when the harshness of life enters your sphere? It conducts itself well from what I can tell as I hold you in my arms and feel it beat like a tiny small drum against my stomach. Such pleasure I derive from this act, after dinner, at the table, watching the candlelight flicker and die with you on my lap, a beating, regular,  small dog heart beat. It never skips.

I think of Fontanelle then. The word comes out of the blue. The word is beautiful. To me, it is a new baby, soft blankets, blue bonnets, breast milk stained shirts, sleepless nights, cribs, diapers. Tenderness of a crater where the world opened up. Maybe it's sad that you remind me of babies Small Dog but Fontanelles.......why? Pulsating, strange little hollows and indentations.  Something not seen everyday. A brief glimpse into life and all its chasms.

Vulnerable and gentle I was too. As delicate as a Fontanelle, fumbling my way through the new rules of motherhood. Rules? No. How could there be rules. Wrong word. But a new discovery where paths had to be carved perhaps.

Fontanelles are beautiful. They are like heart beats. I remember watching them with my newborns like I had never seen anything so magical. Like the inside of a Pomegranate. You open it up and inside is a haven of gems, glistening jewels ready to be scooped out. You take them out with respect, tug gently at the tough shield, lay the fruits on a ceramic platter, place it by the window of late evening sunshine and decide not to eat them. So perfect they are. So pleasing to the eye as they glisten and gleam and throb with life and days pass, many days before they begin to  lose their heavenly sheen.