Ornament

The sap is not yet risen in the tree
though days are warmer. Despite
the news, I'm still afraid 
of all  the optimism 
about getting back a world 
we thought unquestionably
ours. It's like that story in which
the woman craves a night—
just one—to press against her throat
like a jewel she  wishes she didn't have
to give back: how her nervous hands 
flutter like unnested birds to make sure 
it's still in place. How it disappears
so quietly, as if it were never there.