We learnt that we were born from stones, that the last
man and woman to survive the flood climbed from their raft
onto the shoulders of a  mountain and looked across the water
which had swallowed everything.

For days there had been a sea but no shore, now as the water
curled back its lip and let go of the tops of trees
the man and woman followed, walking down the slope,
their feet touching the edges of the water,

their arms full of the bones of the earth, their hair long
and flowing to their waists.  They cast stones behind them
and from the hand of the man a stone fell and grew into
another man and from the hand of the woman

a stone fell and grew into another woman and so we grew,
our eyes like flints and our mouths tasting of the earth. 
We were born from stones and we were destined to live
like stones, warming ourselves in the sun,

cracking when the temperature fell, we said there was
something of the sea in us, but in this, like many other things
we lied, it was never water in our hearts, we carried stones
in our pockets, we carried them in our hands.