[Header Photo by Colin Watts on Unsplash]

i have met so many
lovely people

much, much younger
than me

certainly ash and entombed
before them

•

in the floorboard
of the backseat of my car
remains a small white rock

my granddaughter as a toddler
dropped from her tiny hand
asleep in her car seat

while i drove us somewhere
now mostly lost to memory
the way she forgot the rock

even as she at 10 years old
pauses beside the car still
so we can walk hand in hand

•

i have met so many
lovely people

much, much younger
than me

each replaying in my mind
like the songs my lover loves

etched into the stone of me
wishing i could hold on forever

—P.L. Thomas