Katrina Kaye

My façade is masonry.

Mineral matter

solidified

over supple flesh
of chin and chest.

I have built myself
into marble statue
perpetual in posture.

When you hit gravel,
I was the stepping stone
that supported your climb.
When you couldn’t swim any longer
I was an island to lie upon.

You said I was your rock:

stone held firmly in place,
lacking malleability,
solid under weight bending back.

You said you needed me
to hold you up,

keep free of fierce waters,
and blackened ravines.

You said I am
your stable support,

but my material,
though durable,
lacks permanence.

The smallest stream
cuts through
the hardest of granite
after years of rain.

Mountains weather to remnants,
boulders become sand,
and pebbles playing on the beach
move easily in the
pull and tug of changing tide.

I have not remained picturesque
from years of exposure to your elements.

My exterior is worn, eroded,
and when I crack
there will be no gems to harvest,

just hollow.

The firmer your hold on my splintering surface
the more you will strip me to sediments,
until there
is nothing left

of me

for you.

“Erosion” is previously published in They Don’t Make Memories Like That Anymore (2011).