by H.E. Fisher
My mother owned strands and strands
of Flapper-length pearls. Your fingers,
she said, have good moons, prized in her
day, fashionable to leave unpainted.
First Lady Jacqueline Lee “Jackie” (Bouvier)
Kennedy Onassis, “Jackie O,” as she was later
called—even her name pearled—wore a triple
strand they say was simulated. You can buy
a knockoff almost anywhere.
I bought myself a pair of cultured earrings
like angry sex like sucking vulgar caviar
in the back booth at the Russian Tea Room.
Just another aphrodisiac. Another shell
to slip the knife into and pry open.
Are these real? I once asked my mother, lifting
a strand from a Wedgwood box, a gift to her
from a friend after—I don’t know which—surgery.
Are fake pearls less real than real ones?
The way her face changed
when my oldest brother became a bird
singing to himself.
How every word of his lyric
held pearls of wisdom.
I think of pearl divers tending fragile bivalve spheres
in netted cages underwater. Few mollusks survive.
She bought herself a yellow diamond,
stainless steel cookware, a fur jacket
on sale, Calvin Kleins and Nipons,
bought herself
a little time with every purchase.
She told me she graduated college.
My aunt says she never finished
high school.
Is this a poem about my mother’s lies?
I thread waxed silk through the rounds of nacre,
make knots between them.
::
H.E. Fisher is the author of the collection STERILE FIELD (Free Lines Press, 2022) and chapbook JANE ALMOST ALWAYS SMILES (Moonstone Arts Center Press, 2022). H.E.’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, DMQ Review, Ligeia Magazine, and Whale Road Review, among other publications. H.E. was awarded City College of New York’s 2019 Stark Poetry Prize and has received nominations for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize, and is a recipient of the Poets Afloat residency. H.E. is a writing coach and the co-editor of (Re) An Ideas Journal, and lives in the Hudson River Valley.
Image: Tiffany Anthony
ID: Three-strand pearl necklace.
Psaltery & Lyre 