What is it, gray and ridged,
sitting all to itself in a bed
of many others?
What is it now
that I recognize it, that I,
with my brief hand
choose it, pick it up, warm, and throw it in the water?
I watch it break
the glass
of the green lagoon.
Then a split silence
it sinks:
bubbles surface.
Around my ear a buzz—
far into the distance, a bee darts,
increasing silence.
I throw another rock:
shatter!
Another:
shatter!
And so close to nothing
another long silence holds the air
as the last rock sinks farther
and farther
into the lagoon:
another still and untouched thing
feels love.
-Ahrend Torrey
Ahrend Torrey is a poet and painter. He is a creative writing graduate from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. When he is not writing, or working in New Orleans, he enjoys the simpler things in life, like walking around City Park with his partner, Jonathan, and their two rat terriers Dichter and Dova. Forthcoming this year, his debut collection of poems ‘Small Blue Harbor’ will be available from The Poetry Box Select imprint.