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# Tennies Jewelry
- URL: https://www.fsm.ink/tennies-jewelry/
- Published: 2025-02-15T17:47:20.000Z
- Updated: 2026-06-03T18:01:29.000Z
- Author: Austin Segrest
- Tags: Poetry, #Import 2026-08-03 09:59

*by Austin Segrest*

Nothing’s changed. The same  
wood paneling, spare selection,  
like a bare branch tossed  
in a salt mine.

Each piece mined, cut, and set,  
each piece pronged and draped  
like Stalin under glass,  
given an expanse of silk,

given the chance to speak  
under incredible pressure:  
red for ruby, green for emerald,  
black for diamond, white for gold.

The clock is still on Nixon—hell,  
McCarthy time. Look how time  
is entrusted to us. Crystal,  
crumbs, grains, apples,

flecks of the mantle. Love  
reaches for the unplucked  
pluot it cannot afford.  
Behind the case, beauty,

starting with your drink,  
ending with your death  
by the space age salad bar,  
jewel light swimming up her face,

will take your order. Look  
in the crypts time has encrusted.  
This order, may it give you  
your beauty, your borders back.

> Austin is an Assistant Professor of English at Lawrence University. His second collection, *Groom*, is coming out April 2025 with Unbound Edition Press.