All day I carry the stone, the last present of my dead. A cut-crystal water glass breaks against it. My lover's laughter shatters against its gray weight into rags of rain. All day people ask me for the stone, offer to throw it down a well, bury it, smash it with sledgehammers. But I cling to it, draw my face on it, dress it in baby clothes and weep when it won't nurse. |