Hard Water

The rain doesn't soak into the path today;

it just turns the slate into a dark, slick skin.

I picked up a piece, flat and sharp-edged,

and it felt colder than the air, a deep, heavy thin.

It’s the color of a bruise that’s finally fading,

or a sky that has given up on the idea of blue.

I tapped it against another stone in my pocket—

a sound like teeth clicking, a hollow, grey cue.

Everything else in the garden is turning to mush,

rotting and soft in the October decay.

But the slate just waits, harder than the water,

holding its breath while the rest of me washes away.