Crown

You made the tiniest crown out of rubies and silver with dewdrops of gold, handed it to me on black velvet with a modest shrug. The best I could do. You bent down so I could place my hands 'round your neck, in a gesture neither one of us would have done in a different where, a different when.

Someday, the sun will rise. I'll wake up before the rest of the world, collecting the drops of gold resting on the tips of Earth's fluttering viridian eyelashes. I'll pull wreaths of silver from the clouded sky, listen to them rustle like wind chimes. But that's all I can do for now. Someday, the rubies will come. They'll bloom inside the tulip's cup of petals like gemstone Thumbelinas dreaming of fairy princes riding on bumblebees. Someday I'll find the heart to fashion you a crown of the Earth, with all the gold and silver and rubies of the world, and hang it across the velvet night sky and declare it to the gods.

But that someday is not today.