Half-Finished Heaven

Into our aquarium we place one grief,
then another, until they shine like neon
stones small as centers of Os.

Through the water, they look
bigger and fractured, and my hand, too,
reaching in. Misfits, like forgotten second-
hand boots.

Are we all like plants growing
off gravel pasts, dune-drifted
on the furry algaed bottom of a tank?

Even streets are made of whatever color
rock is local, here it’s pink,
the mantle turned inside out.
Together we encase in glass a scale
replica of how we hurt.

Barbara Duffey is the author of two poetry collections, most recently Simple Machines (2016), which won the 2015 Washington Prize. She has received fellowships from the NEA, the Jentel Foundation, and the South Dakota Arts Council. A professor of English at Dakota Wesleyan University, she lives in Mitchell, SD.