i. some stones.

the bloody jasper in my pocket lends a lovely glow. close to me it feels warm as if it was cut from my chest, cut

with a knife made of ancestral bone; warm as a lung.

i keep stones. i could sew them into my hems if the notion bore me from below. return to the river but for all i've grown. these days, knowing more than nothing, i have something worth keeping

worth keeping in stone. long nights i have known

were long days too.

yet every facet sometimes catches a moment of light. can cross a divide and arrive on the other side, guided by something spectral and wild

conjured from memory, someone i knew said:

i carried crystals, hoarded stones

until i learned to keep them in my mind.

now they go wherever he goes and their light is his alone. trailing smoke and cellos,

sharp as a knife of ancestral bone,

warm as night