The Lachrymatory of Atropos

She sifts thru the yard sale table of

discarded whatnots and whozits,

long fingers searching intuitively. 

 

They linger and finally settle on a miniature

 blue bottle amidst the clutter. 

 

She lifts it and peers at the sun

thru the silver chased glass. 

It covers her hand in the impossible

cobalt light of a Chagall window. 

 

She finds the beauty of it hopeless to resist. 

 

The tiny bottle now riding in her pocket,

carefully wrapped in a tissue,

is not unknown to her although

she has not seen one as artfully made

as this in three hundred years. 

The crude glass of those is nothing

compared to this tiny jewel.

She remembers placing them in countless

 tombs with her beloveds over the millennia.

 

And so she will again. 

 

Although this beloved wills no tomb,

no earthly reminder of his passing. 

Nevertheless, she will collect the tears

she sheds for this love just as she has every other. 

Stoppering them into this tiny bottle. 

Her final offering to mortal love. 

 

And when she is done,

she will cleave his thread. 

She will weep no more. 

And she will move on.  

 

NB:  A lachrymatory is a small bottle used to collect tears.  They have been used since the days of ancient Egypt.  Small elaborate clay or glass vials were often left as grave goods or given as gifts.  They regained popularity during the Victorian era and in America during the Civil War.   Atropos is the sister among the fates whose responsibility it is to cut the thread of life

On a personal note.  I am aware that too much Antiques Road Show and a love of mythology is a weird combo.  I brought this piece of writing to my small group in October 2009.  They HATED the piece.  I mean, not just we don't like it or we don't get it.  I mean straight up HATED IT!  Too bad.  I still like the idea of the Fate Atropos as an immortal human woman capable of love.  What anguish does that cause to juxtapose love and duty for her.