a piece
of flag
-stone along the path
beside the river. You have stepped across
its blank face many times. Some
spare
key to these rooms, hidden beneath. The rooms
where you come to sit, stand, and where you
float now, where you see
yourselves and yourself,
one
of you buried
under the flagstone, in the river
-bank, its gentle slope. Eroding. You,
breaking
down, and something breaking
through: crocus, narcissus, poison
ivy. Yourselves
gather, try
to lift
the stone in their many hands, try to
dig through
to yourself and through
yourself, desperate
to find that supposed key.
The ones who bend
might pause to rest, might absent
-mindedly dig their hands into the deep
-cut pockets
in your skin. Might
pull the pockets inside
-out, spilling
a river of stones.