Forensics of the Broken Glass
It could’ve been: a jar of marbles; a fishbowl won at a carnival;
a crystal ball vaporous faces ghosted. Beaker or vase or perfume
atomizer. A smaller devastation. Not the coffin of Snow White
though it glittered when the sun struck it like wicked rain at certain
angles. A puzzle of slipper, or prism used as a paperweight, a spear
of chandelier in my hand—as if the glass recalled how once it was
nothing then was fire enthralled by sand. Imprints in dust, leaves
wind swept into corners. One need not be Aristotle to find
the universal in the particular, or glean the quintessence of a thing.
In another life it might’ve been an empty milk bottle & not a lens
to the view—branches & stems, a tercel circling a scarecrow.
After all, it was only the window pane of an abandoned shack
the woods took back & not some Venus spun into light.
Flower Conroy Punch Drunk Press’s third Featured Woman Poet this August! She is the author of the chapbooks Facts About Snakes & Hearts; The Awful Suicidal Swans; and Escape to Nowhere. Her poetry has appeared in American Literary Review, Prairie Schooner, Gargoyle and other journals. She is the current Poet Laureate of Key West.
Featured image by chuttersnap
