Frost on a Stone-Boat

CARL ROSENSTOCK

There’s something about the surface
of a memory     A hand cart clatters
along a sidewalk     the moments before

the memory surfaces     its wood bed dark
soiled and oil-stained     in the moment
the memory is evoked     My grandfather’s stone-boat

something about the surface     its boards laid
crosswise over two log runners     breaking clear of
the sheer face of forgotten     three low sides surround

the bed open in the back     that is so inexhaustible
in the details     Each spring before plowing
it was dragged by a horse     In that moment

name and object are one     through unplowed fields
and loaded with stones     and there is only
a glimpse of the line     dislodged by winter

and then sifted from topsoil     separating sign and signifier
that always lies below     Stone-boat
my grandfather’s word     and then I am left

with only the word     though I don’t know now
if I ever knew     burnished by forgetting
how he came by name or knowledge     If only I could

double back and map     No one bought or sold them
He made his as he made     what’s been lost
It all seems so simple     the word his own

It’s enough I suppose to listen     as a hand cart
clatters along a sidewalk     and then speak

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