"Jalat Khan-30 an Afghan shows a crowd a stone he is about to eat while he was resting near the military airbase near Qandahar, Afghanistan. Khan started eating stones when he was hungry and found it helped his desire for food."
Associated Press, April 8, 2002

Jalat Khan
Leslie Suzanne

I wouldn't begin to know how to eat a stone.

          do you swallow it whole
          do you suck it for a while
          do you close your fist around it or pinch it
          between finger and thumb

it must taste like tears it must strangle like fear it must feel like death

                                                                                                    waiting there

          do you grind it first with mortar and pestle
          do you hold it high to be captured on canvas
          do you still thank God for it

solid round stones, not refined like grain
          the constant aching of permanent pangs
                    tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow the same . . .

I wouldn't begin to know how to thank God for it.

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