Paul Watsky
If You Want to Live
forever, seems you’ll require
a generous selected handful
of little polished stones. My wife,
who’s stuck in town this weekend,
asked me—more, I imagine, to pro-
ject positivity than from conviction—
to stop by the spiritual store for the sake
of someone doing badly, a chore
I didn’t begrudge, being per-
sonally fond of rocks, and the price
no worse than an elaborate bouquet.
Each pebble cost enough to rate
individual wrapping, along with
an attractive, closely printed,
instructive card on what to expect
performancewise, e.g. clear quartz,
the master healer (only innocent
magic here, not the one to rule
them all); black kyanite—
a porcelain-toughener for spark
plugs—to repair holes in the aura:
chrysocolla serving up stress relief;
chrysotile, a.k.a. white asbestos,
one world’s established car-
cinogen, but in our parallel universe,
allegedly a motivator; fire
agate, sending harm back
to its source—let’s all watch
the semiprecious zap meta-
stases. Meanwhile I sit alone
out at the dormant fire pit,
surrounded by unsanctified gravel,
from which in spring emerged
the native poppy plants, now,
after completing their cycle, dried
up and disappeared. Windless,
lovely, a late afternoon to make
eternal life look pretty good.
