So many lit mags, so many podcasts.
All manner of web searches and untold
number of New Yorker articles interrupted
to go spelunking into a poem
that leads nowhere.
So many musty library smelling books
by the dead or nearly dead.
There’s treasure to be found
but it’s tiresome tedious work.
I keep hope
imagining an African diamond miner
dressed in rags, covered in mud
finding a small gleaming stone
to hide in his gums and steal away with.
I’m not the miner.
I’m one of the villagers
that hears the rumor and joins
the small fevered ring. I am a witness
to the slow cautious reveal
and the startling contrast
of the gemstone
and the scarred and dirty hand.

from Main Street Rag

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