Jewels

I want you in old jewels. Your fingers, your neck, the hollow of your collarbones, the bumps of your wrists, the soft useless flesh of your ear lobes.

Take what's been patient in the earth, in the sea, unthinking heat compressing nothing into kaleidoscopes, fragments of light fanning in the dirt like snowflakes, fanning buds like arteries, nutrient-rich chunks, rubies, pearls, diamonds, liquid streams silver, gold.

And the hours of too-human work, the tools and eyes and minutes, straining tight, all heat and carve, heat and carve, etch and set. Father to son, fathers to sons, lockets and rings, bracelets, crowns. Quiet pieces, worlds alone, living through dents and dead owners, thieves and gutters. Living through dust.

But your skin, creased with lines and pores, is mortal-soft. Fleck it in heavy gems, before it's gone. Weight of jewels, crowns for every part, nothing too heavy for you, nothing to overwhelm those eyes dug from somewhere I still wonder on long dark nights.