Found Object, No Origin

I reached for change and found a stone.

Gray shard, thin, flat, cool—

one face smooth as something known,

one face rough as a rule

I couldn't name.

I stood there on the curb

turning it in the streetlight's frame.

Nothing in my memory stirred.

I must have picked it up somewhere—

a sidewalk, or a yard,

slipped it in without a care,

carried it this far.

The bus came.

I kept it in my fist.

The weight of it a small strange claim

on something I'd already missed.