Plant your feet where you stand and let the seed of your loins cement your desire.

For the cyst on your armpit is a growing stone.

Rub it smooth, and with a voice hard as a bone, but soft like a baby's fontanelle, we speak.

The story must be told.

The story must be told.

Your sin is the marble you load in your pockets as you wade into the pond.

May remember that as the rock drowns your sin, the sands of time erase the memory of your

being. The story is carved in stone while you, the cursed, are but a bowl of sand.

Eat the sand.

Let the coarseness wear down your teeth as you listen with open ears to a psalm true.

A man came to town about eight years prior, said he had a tonic that would cure our ills.

The mayor made us gather outside the Lutheran hospital, and there stood the stranger, an open suitcase at his feet.

We waited in line, inch by inch, we got closer.

When it was my turn, I looked inside his tattered valise. A long dead Pomeranian floated, infetted water.

I cupped my hands, plunged them, and brought them to my lips.

Took a big old sip as the stranger nodded in satisfaction.

I haven't been sick since.

Of course, I can't look a dog in the eye anymore.

A hearty warning for a healthy tribe.

May the saliva of our conviction solidify our words like limestone.

Your words are as though a canine stew matted and stinking.

So we swallow your words like a rock

...