Helen Bowell

---

---

Talking To A Stone

After Frank O’Hara

The stone was cold and heavy as a heart.
I placed the stone in my pocket and it bulged
like a bunion. People asked me, how’s your
stone doing? and I would say, Ah, not
great, but it’s just been so busy
lately, I’m sure it’ll slow down.
The stone looked like it had broken
from a cliff into the sea. Great heights,
waves, other stones clattered my stone
into shape. Oh, I could kill a man
with the stone. I’d rather write odes
but I don’t. I always wanted to have
a stone, I just didn’t know it would be
like this. The stone, even now, is asking
how I am, saying why don’t you –

---

---

---

---

HELEN BOWELL’s debut pamphlet The Barman (Bad Betty Press, 2022) was a Poetry Book Society Choice. She co-directs Dead [Women] Poets Society and edited the first anthology of bi+ poets, Bi+ Lines (fourteen poems, 2023).