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The rock in your palm is smooth and cool
you think of swallowing it and 100 others
weight to fill the hollows, you think a rock
is a pill of the earth. Earth medicine?
The rock in your mouth is rough
it sits heavy on your tongue, grows warm
as saliva is the ocean level rising, teeth
clenched to hold the pill inside.
If you dropped right now, face first,
you think of how your teeth would crack
whether splinters of bone would lodge
in your lips and gums, blood coated kiss
crumbs of the earth sticking to the mince-
meat of your mouth, still held shut, blood
as ocean level rising. Slipper the pill,
let it slide down the esophagus. Let it stay
awhile in your belly while you lay in grass
and wonder if death will come for you.
But the stone is a Cadillac and all that happens
is you retch hard when it touches your throat.
The rock on the ground is fractured.
You turn it over looking for a sharp edge.
Finding none, you discard it and walk away.