Chalcedony bead

I remember a six year old girl
who used to contemplate beads
sitting on the play-field
where other children ran
until the earth would wear out a little bit.

She received her first chalcedony gem
from daddy on new year’s eve

and when it wasn’t
wooden like a shaky raft on the ocean
or plastic like an imaginary friend
or even glass like knowing she had to die someday,
her heart was at a loss.

She had found her rock.

*

“Remember" may be not quite the right word
even now that I have found
men who will want me naked, starved
for their pulse and thirsty for their mouths;

I am no different
now that I am finally playing
my own character
in a biographical movie
that’s never won the Oscar,
for the curiosity of critics
who have always been smarter than me.

I am still that child
trying to figure out
what you’re really made of
and how soon
I should expect you to break.