Tara Deal

JEWEL TONES

By Tara Deal

Time to sift
through their things,
collecting nuggets

to be traded in
or hoarded, depending

on how expensive gold is
when we’re finished
and do you remember

the cocktail rings we used to covet,
such small rubies and diamond chips
of our grandmothers

who never had nothing,
that’s what they said, except

for certain chains—necklaces,
they meant—some box
clasps and pins
now unhinged

so don’t even think about it:
don’t
break
down

and recycle,
that is, replace
every specific bracelet
with something else

that might
connect.

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Tara Deal is the author of the poetry chapbook Wander Luster (Finishing Line Press) and Palms Are Not Trees After All, winner of the 2007 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize from Texas Review Press. Her writings have been published by Alimentum, American Craft, Blip, failbetter, Fogged Clarity, Sugar House Review, andWest Branch, among others. And her shortest story can be found in Hint Fiction (Norton).