Poems for boys I've met before, 
Our metamorphosis on marble counter tops,
and finding you again over a phone call. 

I've never met anyone once.
You don't get to know me first
because poets pick up people
like geodes-- we aren't stamp collectors--
we shift for fern fossils with our
fathers so we can learn how to make
another person out of the silt
-- I tell you 
I see you like a metamorphic rock 
and I don't believe in diamonds or amethyst
but I do believe in Quartzite
and marble counters where you'll find
me rolling out my wrists in 
another pie crust--
I'll bring you apples and cinnamon
to sleep with in the blankets-- I remember
the oven coils of the earth
that formed us both with
the first spoken word in the dark--
I know it's unfair to meet someone
who has already met you on a back
corn field road but trust me
this is how we make granite--
this is how the corn learns to 
lean on each other and get
through another snowcone-headed dusk--
poured over the day in iridescent syrup--
Do you like me like rose or lavender
or amethyst?
Have you met me too and do you just like
to watch the dusk turn water melon 
and peach skin and blushed apples?
I remember something about
your hand prints in the fern fossils
in a valley of sand-- I remember 
your voice breaks geodes into rock candy
or snowcones-- 
On this gravel road 
I discovered 
that the foxes are the ones
who bake the stones into layers-- 
churn the earth into dough--
make people into marble counters
to find each other on-- crack geodes like eggs
and knead the earth's pale crust-- 
The foxes eat the left over watermelon 
rinds from the garbage--
and lick dusk from there paws--
I've known everyone at some
point or another-- and I met you 
again in a phone call--
you laugh like quartzite you know?
Has anyone ever told you that
you have the voice of peach skin?
Next time I'll meet you on a gravel
country road-- well wait for the foxes 
or for the pie to fill the room
with cinnamon--
This isn't an introduction
this is a metamorphism-- this
is how we name stones-- 
and how I introduce myself
with my head of snowcone syrup and
my voice spoken into the dark--