All those galaxies 
are inconsequential: 

gaudy stones spilled 
onto a cold black slab.

A few flare like celebrities, 
garish, flamboyant;

others glower in the shadows,
nursing their dull glow.

In the corner,
one modest pebble

      —small, so small—

pulses a faint crimson.
I can almost feel it in my palm, 

warm and smooth, the way it was 
long ago on an unremarkable afternoon, 

dropped into a flannel pocket 
for safekeeping. I thought

I would have it forever.

Amy Ralston Seife is a poet and short story writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lumina, Inkwell, The Ekphrastic Review, Literary Mama, Right Hand Pointing, Plants & Poetry Journal, The Five-Two, and others. She has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and Pushcart Prizes. The editor-in-chief of The Westchester Review, she holds an MA in English Literature from Yale and an MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence, and teaches creative writing in the New York area.