Soul Stone Poem by Glen Martin Fitch

I picked a pebble
from a gritty shore.
I licked it.
'Tell me of your molten birth,
Your journey from a crag
to ocean's floor,
of layered time,
of floods and quaking earth.
His eyes have flecks of mica, gold.
Like you he's hard and quiet,
full of mysteries.
So, hold you?
Toss you back?
What should I do?
Can I display you
near my coins and keys? '
I kissed behind his ear
and smelled the sea.
From whom his chin,
the gullies on his brow,
each scar-
I want to know its history,
I loved him then.
I want to love him now.
“I'll place you
on my dresser's sordid shrine,
Perhaps he'll keep his wallet
next to mine.”