Anne Leigh Parrish

originally published in Full House Literary Magazine

 

 

blue obsidian

 

things of beauty please the eye

paperweights & polished blocks of lapis & malachite

a small crystal vase with silk roses—pink

my favorite, though i don’t care for fake flowers

 

this place isn’t for me

 

he puts a silver giraffe in my hand

because i grew tall early

& the teasing i took fell like black rain

 

dust motes float in angled light

no rain here

 

what does he want, this

curator of his own cluttered greed?

 

i put the giraffe next to a porcelain girl

in a wide skirt—my skirt, & she didn’t

ask to borrow it

 

so much taking in the world

 

yet here’s this man, pressing something

else on me, a smooth stone

he calls blue obsidian

 

more inspiring than any other color, he says

it can lift & fill the sky

just like you