First Date

A pair of earrings,
drops of luminescent green
sea-colored
so that when I turn my head
I imagine waves
breaking.

In a little bit we’re going out to the wonderful Plough and Stars to hear these folks play, so I don’t have time to tell you about my real first date, on which momentous occasion I was not, in fact, wearing any earrings at all as far as I remember. I do recall that I was wrapped in my favorite denim jacket, which had arrived in my closet through various stages of hand-me-down journeying (the air-conditioning in most buildings in Singapore is so arctic as to require layering). Everything else is a blur; I think my brain had actually turned itself off entirely and become a buzzing, melting appendage of nearly no usefulness.

P.S. I was a very immature 15.

(Pictured above is the elegant ear of my colleague Liz, who suffered my lens on her with great grace and wit — as you’ll see quite clearly if you click on the photograph and look at the images on either side of it.)