The Earrings “In a box a lady with diamonds in her earrings, their light changing almost uninterruptedly.” --- Kafka’s Diaries Where are those earrings now? Not In her ears, surely, the lobes So long ago rotted away. But maybe They were her favorite pair And they buried her wearing them, So that they've fallen now To either side of her skull. More likely they’re in a safety deposit box In a bank in Lucerne. Maybe a girl Who works there takes them Out from time to time — they trust her, They’ve given her all the keys — And puts them in her ears, concealing them Under her voluminous blonde hair That darkens in winter. So she Who makes next to nothing To care for the immense wealth of others Gets to imagine that She sits in a box at the symphony. Down below, in the cheap seats, A man has turned to stare up at her. With his dark eyes he looks like a man Who will die soon. But not until then Will he forget her, the diamonds in her ears Brilliant with a light with which No darkness, no matter How profound, can interfere.
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Wow, this is such a beautiful piece. I like how you took that piece of the diaries of Kafka, and created this imagined life, juxtaposing the eternal life of things to the finite time we have on this planet.
Impressive.