"Two Stones" was made from two word fragments lifted from my emergency poetry notebook, and set in the diner of today's lunch with a friend. The result is vaguely unsettling.
Two Stones
There are two stones on the table between our hands.
Neither of us moves to rearrange the stones.
Currents stir a napkin's picot trim.
The window glass shudders in its loose dovetail sash
as wind whips sand and gray oak leaves and aluminum cans
in a noisy patter across the parking lot.
The stones sit, polished and unmoved, between our hands.
A snarl of bright clothes on a fractured hurrying family
bags of merchandise loose hair and trailing child
make a crooked journey across the town common
while pickups roar through the crossings and jiggle the floor.
The silverware rocks in cradles of corningware.
The stones lay shining and immovable.
Neither of us moves a hand.
Two Stones
There are two stones on the table between our hands.
Neither of us moves to rearrange the stones.
Currents stir a napkin's picot trim.
The window glass shudders in its loose dovetail sash
as wind whips sand and gray oak leaves and aluminum cans
in a noisy patter across the parking lot.
The stones sit, polished and unmoved, between our hands.
A snarl of bright clothes on a fractured hurrying family
bags of merchandise loose hair and trailing child
make a crooked journey across the town common
while pickups roar through the crossings and jiggle the floor.
The silverware rocks in cradles of corningware.
The stones lay shining and immovable.
Neither of us moves a hand.
