Beady Eye
a poem
I traded in
my parure of cherry
drops and purple grapes
for fairy money,
the fossilised faux pearls
from grandma’s old nest,
a teddy bear’s eye
flat on one side,
gobstopper orbs
from a cocktail choker,
all rattling around in an old biscuit tin.
My sister pointed
to a corner of the playground.
‘Let the swapping begin,’ she said.
Later, my acquisitive nature
developed a kink,
collecting beads of a rarer kind,
outside of the tin,
so to speak.
Northerly starstones
washed from the mouth
of St Cuthbert,
a polished gem the size
of a gull’s egg dangling
Byzantine style,
the wooden quarter-kopek
from a Russian abacus,
Venetian filigrana,
a nephrite comma of Magatama
bitten off by a sun-goddess,
a smattering of chondrite
quartz fallen on a driveway
after a meteor shower.
I poked a silken nerve
through each core,
stringing them
along.
**
