Looking for the soul bone

Elizabeth Garcia


The Torah says
it’s the piece of you
that’s indestructible.

Put it in fire,
it won’t burn.
Drop an anvil on it,

it will fulcrum underneath,
tip the block
like a wobbly table.

This is the piece I’d like to find,
hold in my hand, examine
its shape, its calcified pores,

the color of scrolls, where I can read
of the salt I came from,
the simple orbit of atoms--

then pocket it for later,
until somewhere
in the woods, I find 

the right body of water
to skip it across, listen
to the chord it strums.