Jewel

Suppose there was a jewel
belonging to everyone
that, in fortunate moments,
you had held with both hands
coolly until caught in its allure;

taken covetous stock of its surface
intricacies, imperfections, pressed
down until its edges made blushing
imprints on your fingers; by day
observed its properties of light-refraction,
beheld that swimming pool glimmer,
cognizant by night of
the precise weight of its matter;

jewel unseen but felt and held as a jewel,
suppose you had demystified its triumph
and tragedy, fallen in love
only to duly hand it back again
for the jewel was everyone's but no-ones
to be loved by many, possessed by none.

Better then to partake of partial ecstasy
with its attendant troughs of envy
and confusion and misery,
inevitability of the moment
when that jewel becomes, to our minds,
the property of no other than you or me,

always knowing this to be
sheer impossibility:


the painful glee of eating hot chili,
or being throttled by a lover,
the perverse satisfaction afforded you
by failure.