Glass Poetry Press

editor@glass-poetry.com

Volume Five Issue One

Marc Nair

Glass

— after Taj Mahal It is true, everything was once made of glass, every tree and building, every beating heart. Windblown, smooth-eyed glass, holy as water, taking shape in deserts, where men carried glass shields and glass forts shattered before war-cries, as sieges turned brittle the glass tempered throne of warring kings. But the Taj Mahal was raised, empty of glass, all arch and jewel, Shah Jahan's love safely marbled from the cracked touch of death, leaving us to wonder at this immortality shaking our proud skyline skins, our glass bones thick with concrete veins, great staircases of blood rushing through crowded rooms of our eyes. We trap ourselves beneath glass, find mirrors for our being, and let our reflections haunt the world, afraid to return to walk the sand before the strike of storms. The center of the Taj pulses, alive with constant susurrus, whispers of glass pilgrims fragile with petition, who pray that this too may not disappear, when the world ends.