Anna V.Q. Ross
Green Amber Honeymoon
Poor gold, fit for no one
but tourists, which we are, ah luxuryto be allowed to revel in the tawdry,
the cheaply gorgeous. In the marketthe stalls divide and converge
in dim corridors, fleckedand suspended. Each
places an imperfect globe,impossibly large, of amber polished
to illuminated sepia on the topshelf, luring us to see
what the Baltic has flung upand left there, casting grandeur
upon trinkets below. We stop,requiring focus, in front of a glass case
of earrings bedded on black. You choosea pair from this multitude and hold
one against my earlobe, letting it dangleclose to my neck, jewelling me
for the second time this week.A few zloty’s to the Polish girl
clearly unimpressed by such gleaming,and they are ours to bring out
into the sun-sharpened square, mineto carry five thousand miles
back to where we live.