The Pearls of a Company Man

by Christina Rueth

Oh, to be in love with company and not with me.
Flocking to the first that soothes your famine; surely it’s known
an oyster’s pearl is not found twice in the same sea.
The new pearl wrenches the weary gut by mistake and he
suffocates a heart that the first pearl left to disown.
Oh, to be in love with company and not with me.
He’ll cry love more than the boy on a wolf-hunting spree
And pluck his solitude like daisies for her to hold alone.
She’ll learn an oyster’s pearl is not found twice in the same sea.
She’s bubble wrap to the past, padlock to the future unfree,
stuck, tricked into affection that is freehandedly sewn.
Oh, to be in love with company and no longer with me.
She plasters what I chiseled and he broke, I’m his skeleton key
He’s a brittle spirit accompanied by her withered bone
that whispers she’s not the pearl found twice in the same sea.
For his heart to wither on standby, that’s my cup of tea,
To wallow in her self-created hell, I’ll stay on my thrown.
Oh, to now be in love with company since he lost me.

University & College Poetry Prizes Page