Ménage à Trois

By Timothy Kercher


I woke up at 4 a.m., turned on the faucet,
and a stone dropped

from the spigot. 


I took the stone and went back to bed. 
The rock was cold, like it had been sleeping outside.


I turned it over and over in my hands, touching its surface as I tried to fall asleep.
The stone was larger, more complex than I thought,

had roads and rivers,

mountains and valleys—


I wrapped my entire body around it. 

Sleeping in between two wives:
one of flesh,

one of stone.


I expected both to be jealous, but the stone was accepting.

And warm.

We decided to rearrange things.
Put the stone wife between us on the bed.


The stone swelling with heat, enough to shed the covers,

the three of us

cleaving together
when the stone began expanding, encircling us like a tower,
my wife and I embracing—

the stone’s windows looking in on us.

 


Timothy Kercher originally from Colorado, now lives in Kyiv, Ukraine after having been in the Republic of Georgia for the past four years, where he was editing and translating an anthology of contemporary Georgian poetry. He teaches high school English and is working in his fifth country overseas—Mongolia, Mexico, and Bosnia being the others. In August, the number of his traveling companions increased twofold; he and his wife are now accompanied by newborn twin daughters, Ani and Ketevan.

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