Black stone, the length of my thumb,smaller than my tongue, nameless,her belly fat, her eyes wide open.I carry her in a sheer green bag.She came to me when a womandied with no offspring to keep her.Her figure is not lovely, but dear–she has endured and will outlast me.

Now that I’ve grown oldcan I sprout new leaves,sweet berries, glossy feathers?I don’t need more toesor another hand, butwith a third eye I could seea past life in a stone huton the coast of Dingle whereI could harvest my word hoard,plant music in the spacebetween my liver and lungs,let moss cover a stony heart,a velvet…

After pillow silence the slow drip of rain, chime of cup against saucer. A motor purr seeps in from the street. Piano music on the radio softens my perpetual tinnitus, then a clatter of the dogs waking and the smack of the cat flap, click of the pen capped. No bird song–spring has become summer.

Coffee in a paper cup, a plastic lid,corrugated sleeve. The printed paper–I call the colors blameless, but not the lid.Would that the paper though revert to woodor coffee grounds backtrack to beans,beans to their blossoming. Too late, too late,to unfry crispy bacon, to revive the pig, and apologize for its bad end.Pretending this plain white…

I don’t need them–no, I do need them,need their hollow, open mouthswaiting to be of use.Today I am a bowlwanting to be filled,my shape unfinished.