Finer things

Is it a diamond you seek?

Cut and shaped with princess blood,

adding to the value?

Pure, elegant, transparent.

Polished to perfection, mirroring

what you wish to see?

Should I congratulate myself for thinking

you do not care for those

neatly fractured inside, tarnished, imperfect,

but diamonds none the less?

You never wanted to see the wild flowers.

Only those cultivated over years

by expert growers and displayed by florists

to show their most enticing features.

But look how much life

those wild flowers bring.

That’s what I’d like to say, yet it’s too late.

Your eyes have turned to stone.

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Colour chart

‘You mentioned you were decorating.

What colour are you painting your walls?’

‘I think perhaps…dead salmon.’

‘I don’t think that’s a colour…more like decor gone wrong.’

‘No, it is a colour. Just like arsenic.’

‘I repeat my previous statement.’

‘Fine. How about salon drab?’

‘There’s no need to insult this establishment.’

‘I’m not insulting it. That’s the name of the colour.

There’s also savage ground, bone, churlish green, pale hound–‘

‘Okay, okay, I take your point. But are you sure

that’s a colour chart you’re reading from?’

‘Of course, I picked it up from the undertaker’s this morning.’