Caitlin Gildrien
The Stone Sits Down to Dinner
It is loud with children
debating the most powerful Pokémon
and the stone is grateful
she doesn’t have ears.
One child does not like her lasagna,
though last week this child had seconds
and asked the stone
if they could have lasagna again.
The other child does not like the bread
with the stuff on it, and the stone would like
to scream that she didn’t put garlic on that slice,
she set it aside purposely,
just try it for god’s sake, but the stone
doesn’t have a voice. The stone is grateful
she doesn’t have a voice. Instead, the man
across the table says something
with the voice he has, like acid,
and then it is so quiet
that she is grateful again not to have ears.
The stone had been a boulder, quite jagged
and wild once, by the edge of the sea. She supposes
that all such rocks are rounded with time,
aren’t they? It’s not so different
from a riverbed, or the shoreline, the tumble-song
of the water and others like yourself,
the conversation of the birds and the way light
through the ripples makes you shine.
The rock tries not to think
about ripples, though sometimes
she dreams about seafoam and sand. No,
she is grateful she doesn’t have dreams.
Instead, she has a crack, deep in her center,
with a drop of water inside. No one can see it.
She is grateful no one can see it, safe in the dark.
She is watching the candle on the table
flicker. She is thinking about ice
in the potholes of the road. She is thinking
about the expansive properties of steam.
Caitlin Gildrien is a poet, visual artist, and graphic designer living at the feet of the Green Mountains of Vermont. Her work has can be found in Rattle, the Rumpus, the Tampa Review, and Birdcoat Quarterly, where she recently won the Editor’s Choice Prize for Poetry. Find her at cattailcreative.com.