An antique pearl

I was only fishing for dinner. Four casts at the eddy for fish to cook, the way I do now without thinking about it.

On one of them the line came up heavy, and there was a pearl on it.

Not the pearl I make. Not laminate pressed out of oysters at the workbench. A real one. Round and old, the kind of thing that has been lying in the dark at the bottom of the canal for longer than I have been in this city. Antique, the city calls it.

I made my own pearl because nobody would hand me one. I took the shells everyone called trash and pressed them into something shining. And then, on an ordinary afternoon, with my mind on frying fish, the water gave me the real thing.

I did not earn it. I did not plan it. It just came up.

I have hundreds of rare things now. This one I will keep closest.