Ethel's Ring

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

---

The band does not form a closed loop.
Each end, in a dainty curve, bends
like the entrance to a formal garden—
two platinum pathways studded
with diamond stepping stones—
and circles the central diamond,
which, set by six small prongs,
rises like a modest fountain.
She never married, my mother says
when she gives it to me.
She worked and saved
and bought it for herself.
It is the day after my mother’s
last mammogram; the cancer is gone.
It is time to pass on an heirloom.
This small splash of light
on my finger illumines the room
and reflects us.
My mother has had three wedding
rings of her own. I have had none. A choice
few understand.
I wonder if Great Aunt Ethel hoped
the ring would deflect attention from men.
Or was it compensation
for a heart that had quietly broken?
Was it vanity sparkling on her finger?
Or a shield to her pride,
conversing in parlors among married women?
And what will it be for me?
I, who have no daughters or nieces.
I keep looking at the facets,
wondering.
Will these diamonds be returned
to the dark from which they came?

---

Brook J. Sadler, Ph.D. is a poet, writer, and professor of philosophy, who enjoys writing across all genres. Her poems can be found in many journals, including Greensboro Review, Calyx, Kestrel, and Tampa Review, and online at the Cortland Review, South Writ Large, South Florida Poetry Journal, and The Boiler Journal. Her online prose publications include pieces at McSweeney's, Women's Review of Books, Ms. Magazine, and Aquifer.