2005 LOIS CRANSTON MEMORIAL POETRY FINALIST

The Stone

                                                                       A widower’s song

I’ve carried a stone in my pocket for six months now.

I often mistake it for nickel--it’s smooth and gray,

like the shadow of a gray goose over lake water

on a dull October day--like that day last October

when we walked along the shore and you flew off.

You flew away to find your father, to feel his hands

around your waist, as you kicked and flapped in the water.

You flew off to see your mother, reading at a picnic table

among the pines, and hear, once more, crazy Toby,

barking from the dock. When you returned to me,

you reached into the water, brought up a goose-shaped stone,

bounced it in your palm--stirred, tumbled, and washed

these eighty years--and tucked it in your pocket.

And now I hold the stone, hoard it, as I wait

with my groceries in the check-out line, wait

beside the green florist buckets full of daffodils,

sunflowers, tulips, and the ones we loved best,

long stalks of quince with their first hint of pink bud.

Laura Black

Laura Black is completing the MFA poetry program at Georgia State University (Atlanta), where she also teaches creative writing and freshman composition. Her poetry is published in Pearl, The Sow’s Ear, and GSU Review, among others. She was a finalist in the 2004 Agnes Scott College Writers Festival and received a Special Merit Award and First Honorable Mention in the 2004 Grandmother Earth and Life Press Award.