stone soup

before i knew the stone soup story
i thought people gathered to eat the rocks.
that maybe in the boiled water
even the stones softened like sesame buns.
a sweet ringing kind of broth. 
in our yard on summer mornings 
i used to sometimes put a pebble
in my mouth while they 
were still cool from the night. once it turned into
a new moon. i was on the surface 
looking down at the gumball world. 
at the diner in the town where i grew up
if you go there in the dead of night
they'll still make you a black & white milkshake.
then if you say, "could i have a stone?"
they'll lead you to the quarry where 
a glider crashed when i was in high school.
no one inside. a roasted bird or pterodactyl. 
i get a pot & go into the yard. i pluck
all the smoothest stones i can find.
i ask the ghosts to help me. the work 
with their third & fifth hands. a pot
heavy with pieces of the thrumming earth.
fill with water & i get them boiling.
i know i am not jesus but i hope
they turn into fishes. i would release them
into the thickening clouds. a whole school
above. instead the rocks sing for us. they sing
about whales & about the earth's core.
how there is a pizza shop there that 
still sells dollar slices. it is 2002 & no one
knows yet how to microwave an apple. 
the water flies away. leaves the stones,
angry from the heat. there is no soup.
maybe in the story but not in the dark. 
i try to pick up a rock but it burns
through the floor & down into the crawl space
where the rats stare at it like a prophet
& then up at us through the floor.