A small black box with gold trim, a serious palm-sized thing. Its leather is the opaque ironic touch of what it stands for: a promise that always gets taken back. You open it and find the roof of its mouth slick white, a velvet tongue below, a strip of fabric like the flat words of forgotten vows. You know that something should be there; that’s what a promise is, right? But it’s empty, and you’re left only imagining the idea of a diamond