I understand not seeing a thing for what it is, like the thief mistaking the carmine-red rhinestones for rubies. Shattering the moonlight, he plucked the size 5 slippers to the black market, leaving one careless sequin behind to squint in the museum case. For years, I mistook the bright blue along the ridged shell of a scallop for mere ornamentation, plucked at the sapphire gaze, an unintended cruelty, blinding what I thought was a starless galaxy without sight or grief. But I’ve learned that a galaxy with no stars is just a hypothesis. Gemstars, everywhere. And we, desperate to handle them like a rune or hand—their message indecipherable. Even if they turn out not to be rubystars, they might be perfect talismans. They might pity us, see that this is as close to real as we can get.

Sandra Fees lives in southeastern Pennsylvania where she is a Unitarian Universalist minister and past poet laureate of Berks County (2016-2018). Her poems have been published in The Comstock Review, Whale Road Review, Witness, and elsewhere. She also has a CNF piece published in The Citron Review.