Margaret Dornaus

Pendant Power

Even as a child I admired the cameo, not merely for its beauty but for some incontrovertible spirit it seemed to embody. My mother's pairing of the necklace with a simple black dress reserved for birthdays and anniversaries heightened the stone's power. That my father had traveled halfway around the world to find the pendant added to its charm.

"Your father was hopelessly romantic," my mother would say of the gesture.

Cupid and Psyche . . .
beneath Vesuvius
I find myself
whispering the story
to my love-struck heart