They sit in a dish
like tiny round candies
we would eat at Christmas,
but they are taken
and melted with hot glass,
combined, merged with a vase
or a wine stopper shaped
like a fish. My daughter
steals one into her pocket,
it must be too tempting
for a child to resist curiosity,
we hold back, but it is a deadness
as we try to fit into the rigid
restrictions of society,
marching in line to the beat
of maturity. I pretend
not to see her, rejoice in
the look of triumph on her
face when she thinks no one
noticed her act of defiance,
her honesty to satiate
desire. As we walk out
the factory shop door,
I grab one of those slices
of blossomed glass, and hold it
in my hand as we board
the ferry back to St. Mark's Square.
Previously published in Merge