GLASS
[Stained]
As in church windows or red wine residue.
[Broken]
As in car window or “wear thick-soled shoes.”
[Devlin]
Typically formed into a small latched-box: rosé, violet, or sky-blue hue. Nothing in that box is sacred, but it appears more precious than it really is. Alice kept hair pins inside that looked like the tusks of miniature mammoths.
[The Imperial Glass]
The most expensive (empty) Champagne glass in the world is valued at $85,365 per unit. I would break it immediately.
[Shatter-proof]
Back to car windows, which break like ice (crushed or cubed) rather than jagged like the wine glass or storm-window.
[Mirrored]
Seven sycamore trees line Fulton Street outside St. Paul’s Trinity Church, reflected by thousands of bank, hotel, and apartment windows: The Financial District Forest, Manhattan.
[Retail Window]
Some storefronts distort your form into a lovable reflection. In others, the effect is freak-show. The point is always that the jeans are beautiful, and you can see yourself in them though they are currently apart from you, and that longing is a kind of Eros established by high-resolution plexiglass tinted to make the viewer appear tan and slender.
[Bullet-Proof]
Bushwick bodega. It yellows like nicotine over time, amber darkening with exposure. The encasement on Knickerbocker was so scratched I never got the full effect of the clerk’s face in the years we went every day for ice cream and cigarettes.
[Lead Crystal]
High refraction index. Shatters on impact. Counter to borosilicate glass which is heat resistant.
[Chihuly]
“…the way form interacts with light and space…installations are created in dialogue with the environments in which they are sited, interacting harmoniously while affecting spatial relations to inspire profound experiences…” Gorgeous. Frequently looks like sperm.
See: Kew Gardens, London.
See: Bronx Botanical Garden circa 2016.
See the sculpture in the hotel lobby, where we said hello and goodbye for the last last time.
[Fused Quartz]
The sidewalk concrete within a three-block radius of Grand Central is mixed with chemically pure silica so the paths cast a shimmer beneath the halogen streetlights. Combined with the scant layer of smashed soda-lime and headlight fragments on the surface, the effect is double-glitter, stars beneath your feet as you walk.
Jamie L. Smith is a PhD candidate in English Literature & Creative Writing at University of Utah. She is the author of the chapbook Mythology Lessons (Tusculum Review). Her work appears in publications including Southern Humanities Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Not-Very-Quiet, and Red Noise Collective.