A seven-foot sandstone wall holds back
a small garden.
The wall is a monument, cut from an older wall for which
the multicolor stones; black, brown, and grey,
were originally quarried. I gave it a chance,
heaving my foot to scale it.
I lay there for the night, waiting for your call, looking
up at the branches of a papery birch,
bathed from below by the monument lights. I think—
they do not shine the way your eyes do.
It’s not smooth, there are rough spots, not unlike with you and me.
It's coarse to the touch,
but my back forms its way
into the grooves and my head finds its niche—
there is something about the way your hair feels
between your skull and a hard place. I think of your hands in
my hair.
And it does not stay cold. It warms to my body—
your body. Unchiseled, uncut, rugged, like these stones.
