Glass Girl

(written by request, for T.)

Beautiful glass girl, refracting the light from other sources

Admired, carefully cared for,

Protected and turned by other hands

To an angle and an attitude that pleases.

Glass Girl, full of grace

Who are you when there's no one there?

And why do you dance all night

Frozen in place

The image of whatever ornament is needed?

And despite all the pleasing and smiling,

There came a day when you were taken from your delicate case and hocked

Leaner times

And sticker shock

Made beauty an extravagance, a red-headed stepchild to necessity.

Practicality the killer of

Delicacy.

After all the sheltering hands that had known you,

Bless the gypsy who stole you

And discovered your body was not of glass but of ice.

Water has motion

And current can carry or conduct;

Steam obscures or warms

So when magic meets magician

It is the marks who gasp and refract

Like so many jewels on a rope.

There is a reason

The three fates are women.

They led you back home

To your admirers again.

But this time, when the music began,

When they smilingly reached to pose you

With their presumptuous hands,

They received the violent beauty of lightning instead.

No longer a glass girl

Posed on a stand

You call down the storm

With a diamond's command.

_________