A Granite Subsistence

Athwart this slab of granite the wok wonks             
                      the hand to steady it steadied me before he
                withdrew and departed
                                the wok wonks with me in the vacuum

                            The steady hand steadies us strokes
    our round black bottoms and cocks
its owner’s head to one side
                                    slides through thick hair and speaks -

“granite cools slowly; that is why it is granite”               

                                        the hand told the story of the speckled smooth as
molecules knowing their mates                                                           
                by the time it takes
to freeze
            black leads
                                                            later grey
                                                                                                           lastly white

his means and I came together a fast end           
woks and women cool contemporaneously               
                                                but we are not made of stone-stuff
                                                the hand’s story will not tell us


I told the wok she must depart while she still burns                           
the hand and has compliance                                                             
            to deformation I had resistance
                offered by an elastic body once...

before I stabilized and crystalized                                                                                                        
bondage in another white hand’s kitchen                                                                                        

the wok is resigned to her fate                                                         
already wedded to the black stove below                                 
  a black spot in a sea of grey appliance spots
                and white tile spots; in a granite subsistence I find
I cannot move

                                The cooling has already begun.