It wasn’t the same day
that I took the piece of charcoal
from the barrel in front of the glass shop
under the Hewes J train stop,
but it was close to it, I’m sure.

Or maybe I had just found it earlier that day-
but either way, I had it in my jacket pocket
that day we walked by the glass shop
and I took the piece of charcoal.
I doubt it’s that important, the sequence
but maybe it is.
The charcoal, for sure, is long gone, and, looking back,
wasn’t much more than a sign
pointing toward the object in my jacket pocket
and what happened to us that day.

It had the raw edges it should have had
and the rough shape of a continent,
so I said it looked like a whale.
It was rusted orange where it had to be
and was in my jacket pocket,
and we’d talked about whales recently,
so I wish you could have seen it.

I lost it. Or gave it up rather.
It became part of a deal I’ll tell you about later,
which went down according to rules
we’ll talk about later.
I went on without it for a while
going in and out of my house without it
and in and out of the parts of sidewalk with the sun
where it’s better now that it’s cold
without it
and went to visit my mom at her house without it
and then I was no longer without it.
It went down into the tar pit
where all the dulling things collect:
whales, torn ligaments,
alone moments with inexplicable feelings,
sex events that fertilize the dreams that themselves then crust
into the dream fossils

all silent, not even the death gurgle of real muck.

The next time I saw it
it didn’t look like a whale anymore.
It hadn’t been thought of like that for a while,
and it had human teeth now.