The day exists as a warm stone in the palm—
or as a small pebble set on the center of the tongue,

a wafer weighing down with a certainty of faith.
A running motif of the rocks I once collected in pockets,

various, nondescript, mundane,
and even the cast off stones my boy collects,

piling them for hours on the back porch.
All of these effigies gathered together build a bridge

between myself and my father, slowly over years.
The same ghost of my father fresh from Hades,

who drops coins in my hands—as in phonetics of rubble,
pebbles of sounds.

They exist in the backyard heavy as words.
Blue cobblestones becoming syllables, or perhaps even dissonance,

a reminder of the dry crunch of gravel roads—
days after a long, brittle season.