Poor Man's Diamond Poem by Leo Yankevich

I'd go out, see Agnieszka behind
the splintered greyness of the wind,
red maple leaves so close I'd touch
them in their resurrected flights.

I'd lug a hard-on in my pocket,
or chunk of looking-glass bright coal,
pretend it was a genuine diamond
and offer it on a dime-store string.

Love had turned me into alchemist.
But a woman with ambition,
she gave it back to keep me warm,

heat from her fingers like a furnace
twenty calendar years later
whenever I shave or comb grey.