is he limestone or marble
is he granite

or merely fossilized
in memory

a fading photo
in the depths of a drawer

I recall his flinty silence
when I cried

and how
by slow accretion

the rage
coiled inside me

was it his reflection
in my finally pitiless eyes

that froze him
a stuck frame

mid-sneer mid-shout
his volume turned

all the way
down

did my hair really writhe
or was I just tired of crawling