Soapstone

Soapstone

I wipe the soapstone counter wet

Until the darkness reveals its deep

Veins, impurities and other stories.

Tales of the epochs spent far under

Ground, the ages of silent formation

Where everything about it was stone,

Then later, sliced into smooth wafers

To serve in my kitchen, pouring out

Its dark materials in the awaited light.

I wipe the soapstone counter wet

If only to find again that place where

Everything is smooth, nobody afraid,

No screaming or slamming of doors,

But the stone has its own memories

Does not use the practiced words to

Invoke deity, memory, the beloved,

Will not agree to prepare someone

Else’s meals on its back before me.

I wipe the soapstone counter wet

Every day, sometimes more, not sure

Why but every sponge, every paper

Towel becomes a call to purification,

A cleaning of the slate, much as my

Father’s cough in the morning never

Killed him but seemed to be hacking

Up the leavings of dreams he did not

Want to remember, could not forget.

I wipe the soapstone counter wet

But never clean, the round marks of

Glasses, the crumbs of the desires of

Others for whom purity is not the goal,

And ever more darkness is coiled and

Ready to come forth, as if this quarried

Face is only a portal for everything we

Keep underground, in the dark, muffle

In silence until someone stops to listen.