Tonight's Poet Corner: Glass

Glass
by Belinda Roddie

Her grandmother had a glass eye -
spiderwebbed blue, arching light
across the diameter of the living room.
I was reminded of The Tell-Tale Heart;
suddenly, with a murderer, I empathized.

That eye lingered like a broken sapphire
lost in an aging, gray ring of a face.
All fragmented. All battered by time.
Cracks disturbed from slumber across
her lips and brow. Lopsided nose and chin
to finish the cubist portrait. Perhaps
I was being far too cruel.

For she was not made of glass, yet how fragile
she appeared. For she had lost her real eye
in a basement long ago, after her angry father
had lost his mind over a dry bottle. The neck
of that, too, had been shattered. Screams
palpitating. Heartbeat screeching fire. Half
her vision lost, but memory seared like
an engraving on soft gold fingers.

I suppose that's why the glass eye looked
as if it had fallen, ground into the floor
by a boot, and beaten with a hammer.
After all, not even a precious substitute
can restore what has already been aged
into endless shards.