The City High Review

Barnacles

soak the hem of her dress

notoriously grainy and bitter

thirteen lumps of quartz

a lozenge of blue topaz

rutted and scarred,

A real diamond is never perfect.

Windows jeweled with raindrops

A dapper little gestapo man,

flesh frozen gray

sits quietly in a sunbeam

* The phrases in this poem are sourced from All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr