I met him on Bourbon Street one year
at Mardi Gras.
We both had professional cameras
and were, of course,
aficionados of the female form
and any part thereof.
We began a great friendship
sealed in margaritas, artistic photographs,
and curb-side puking,
before I even knew
he was a famous diamond cutter
in Antwerp.
I mentioned
that I bought mine in a pawn shop
without thinking this might bring offense.
No, no, he said. I must correct you slightly.
You bought it in
the pawn shop of the human heart.
You see, I imagine that
with brutal equanimity
in every facet that I crack.
In the speed of light,
slowed down dramatically by tight-packed carbon,
I must symbolize heroic virtues.
Every glint of piercing light reflects
wisdom and constancy.
The diamond cutter’s eyes must see
each stone with the heartless zeal
of a perfectionist with pimples.
He must create a crystal whose sanctity
cannot be sullied by
the truth become cliché.

–Bobby Steve Baker,
Numbered Bones
Accents Publishing

More from Bobby Steve Baker:

• “Pelvis”
• Bobby Steve Baker has this Crazy Urge to Live
• “Homo Lupus Homini”
• “There Is No Medicine for What I Got”
• “Chaos, Clarity and Contradiction”
• “Wild Game”

Bobby Steve Baker was born in Ontario, Canada in 1951, but has lived and practiced cosmetic surgery in Lexington, Kentucky for many years. He holds an MFA degree in Poetry from National University and has published in various literary journals, including Ann Arbor Review, Boston Literary Magazine, and Grey Sparrow Journal. In 2009, his poetry in tinfoildresses was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Bobby grew up in a home where poetry was ever-present but began to write seriously only in the past few years.