Your stone will grow if you plant it
among other long dead, vibrant

 

matter. If you secure it with some

 

portion of yourself. A safe option:
toenails, split ends like feathers

 

sheared off. If you’ll risk it: a tooth,

 

skin peeled from the callouses of your
palms, flecked red—you’ve dug too

 

deep. You matter. Your once static,

 

stagnant matter sits in the moonlight,
and if you dream big enough, shifts.

 

What is the moon but a stone?

 

The mounded sunflower dirt waits
in the wind and your body waits

 

for flight. You recall the fox’s meta-

 

morphic shout, as your craning
call shakes the sandy dirt.

 

The moon fox steps from her

 

buried birth and shakes
white fur free from earth.

 

 

---

 

 

MICHELLE DONAHUE Michelle Donahue has work published in The Boiler, Passages North, Arts & Letters and elsewhere. She holds a PhD in creative writing & literature from the University of Utah. She is currently associate editor at Ecotone and teaches creative writing and publishing at UNC Wilmington.

 

The art that appears alongside this piece is by AMY RENEE WEBB.