Chicago, Lake Michigan, on the Beach by the Museum

Sharp

Broken

Used up

Emptied out

And thrown away

A bottle

A shattered glass

A safety window full of wire

And who knows what other battered things

Swallowed by this Great Lake

Tumbled

Broken even more

Lost in the depths

Until coughed up

Again and again

In windswept rhythmic spasms

On the edge of humanity

To become a jewel

Capturing the sun

In soft suffusion

Edges smoothed

To delight the eye that spies it

The palm that holds it safe

The fingers that caress its softly rounded surface

And the soul

That sees herself

Both broken and new

Discarded and discovered

In this little miracle

Of foggy glass