Prepping Rocks

Hot pulse flow
under peeling, scratch cuticle
Dust under and over, scuffed, sanded into line ridges
Hands buried in solid
slippery cool water trickles
Throughout the clicks of pebbles bumping
and brushing and kissing
in my bathtub.

With icebox nails
I swallow slate.
Each pebble goes down a pill
digs into the gut and weighs.
Goes down a whole ice cube
pressing against the sides of the throat,
cold, wet, refreshing, heavy,

I swallow pebbles in my bathtub.
I lick the cliché of inevitability.
And I dance with thoughts of navy blue.