by James O'Hern

    My stonemason John says

    he uses Elberton granite from Georgia

    It has the best grain and lasts the longest

    How long is long I ask

    Oh he says a thousand years

    I want more than hard gray stone

    to guard her silence

    I want stone that stays alive

    a megalith jammed deep into earth

    an antenna to amplify the signals

    emitted from her ash and bone

    I went to Ireland

    looking for the perfect stone

    found stone cottages and monuments

    mountains and fields of stone

    continuous rows of stonewalls

    wound round the island like an offering

    I found stone carvings of mermaids

    and ancient unnamed river gods

    a Sheela-na-Gig I thought I recognized

    having seen her name

    on the walls of a cave in the Dordogne

    along with her portrait cut and shaped

    on the rounded surface of soft white stone

    There are no stones

    where my mother and I were born

    only the jagged edges of memory

    ground down by the desert molcajete

    to caliche and polished round pebbles

    leaving no trace of history

    but an abandoned pulque farm

    an adobe jail

    and a dried up river bed

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