MOSQUITO IN AMBER Poem by Kathryn Daszkiewicz

Only for connoisseurs
the lapidarist said.
Kept in a drawer.
Not for display
with agate paperweights
bookends of amethyst.

Mosquitoes were your thing.
I wrote a cheque
took home that black speck
in its yellow mausoleum.

This is no mere decorative
imprint of skeleton in rock
but something trapped
as sticky resin dripped
down trunk and stem.

I imagine it on
your bookcase, next
to the Scandinavian condiments
in a studied absence of photographs.