Babies grow hard skin
And bones like stems
From budding flowers
With their faces towards the sun

So I take their lead, spinning
On records, playing
From the brass horn, rusted
And cracked in its command

Balloons fill with atmospheric
Contents, content to end
Hunger and feel like floating
Is not just for daydreamers

I am the stone that sits,
Roadside and unseen
Until your bike wheels
Catch a lick of hard gray
And dust-filmed loneliness

And you spin, like I do,
Though by accident, you think,
But my wishful form digs for
Fate and completion and just how to begin
Being me

You are fourth,
We are the fourth;
Umbilical cords and water,
Air and nothing you see
Mix in metaphors to fit me

I am what you will
(And if you won't, I'm nothing)
Still, you reject the work,
Asking again for a job
That suits someone who
Thought they were less

But as your skin scrapes against gravel,
Small stones shrink and leave
Chalky residues in its place,
Take your pigments and remain
One whole piece

Whether things stay still
When time runs or crawls or flies,
I don?t know,
But I am the stone by the roadside,
And you shape me by your wheel