He’s an indicator mineral, shares the riverbed
with a golden girl. They carbon date, waltz,
consummate, find strength in their clastic braid.
His dull clay arms envelop her, shield her shine
from prying eyes. But when they’re pulled apart,
sifted for significance, she sinks to the bottom
of the placer pan while he’s washed away,
his silica spent, discarded, no longer capable
of protecting her nuggets from the prospector’s
assaying hands, from the tyranny of being on display.
Maureen Kingston is an assistant editor at The Centrifugal Eye. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gargoyle, Stone Highway Review and Terrain.org. A few her recent prose pieces have been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart awards.
Categories: Poetry
Tags: e-zine, ezine, hyperbole, Maureen Kingston, melancholy, melancholy hyperbole, poem, poet, poetry, The Innocent Betrayer
Melancholy Hyperbole 