Dave Bonta imagines the moment someone first drilled a hole through a shell and strung it on a strip of hide. He begins with rain and a thrush's song, things that happen without intending anything, yet still move us. That sets up the poem's odd idea: beauty can arrive by accident, and then humans take hold of it.
The speaker's tone shifts from quiet wonder to direct address ("Tell me what your tongue tastes like"), as if pulling us into our own senses before the story starts. Then the invention is told almost like a creation myth. A bead makes time something you can "savor," and the necklace divides "the waters from the waters," echoing the biblical creation story. The comparison to a "movable wound" is striking, since it hints that ornament carries pain, or a mark of difference. The ending, a smile "full of teeth" shown when others see, suggests pride, display, and a little danger. The mood is awed, sensuous, and slightly wild.