A Speck of Stolen Silver

Morning light betrayed what the velvet curtain tried to conceal: a single, stray speck of metallic mica wedged inside the sycamore leaf's curled stem. I leaned over our sealed snail reliquary, nudging the stubborn flake with the tip of one darkened fingernail until it dislodged. Rather than cast it away, I balanced the glinting fragment upon the hard dark wax seal of the crimson thread. A modest altar requires no grand tributes, only precise tributes. Now, whenever the sun finds a way past the pin, that wax will hold its own cold gleam.