We ran from the burning puppet theatre
as they hunted us.
I was their cook
            and you smashed clocks by the river— 
You say you don’t remember this.

When the stone kingdom fell,
I was alone
in that brick house by the roadside
a line of cobblestone lighthouses on one side,
                        a field of gravestones on the other.

A ship pulled out through the fog.
You say this never happened.

I groped through the trees until
            here, I found you again
ankle-deep in that muddy river
where you told me
heaven has no pointed fences
and stripped down until I could see your
bones and tongue without pretense

A train glided across the brick aqueduct
and plunged into the black water.

What was the real disaster?
                                 you said
Stars can burn for billions of years

somehow you always knew
                        the only way out
was to become one of the stones
unafraid of time, broken

                                    pouring out light.

 

(Editors’ Note: “Stone Kingdom” is read by Matt Peters on the Uncanny Magazine Podcast, Episode 52B.) 

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