Trencadís

During a collaborative storytelling game I’ve been playing with friends recently, one friend commented that the character she’s playing is like a glass because “I’m fragile and will hurt people when I break.” Her phrasing set the poetry neurons buzzing in my brain, and this poem was born. The rest of the imagery was inspired by Antonio Gaudí’s trencadís mosaics (a form of found-object art typically made from broken ceramics or glass) that I saw in Barcelona in 2022. “Trencadís” is derived from the Catalan word “trencar,” meaning “to break.”

A glass half-empty, hopes poured out,
half-full of tears of grief and doubt.
I’m fragile, falling; all’s at stake,
and I will hurt you when I break.

I’ll slice the hands that reach for me
with cutting lines said viciously.
I’ll sever ties you seek to mend
with every fragment that you tend.

I know that I’m beyond repair.
Why waste your pity and your care?

And yet…

You’re chipped and cracked, ’bit worse for wear:
my fellow foundling tableware.
We cannot make each other whole,
but maybe that is not the goal?
Our broken edges could align:
a grand mosaic by Design.

I’ll bare my sharp and bleeding shards—
each part of me the world discards—
if you will meet them, end to end;
perhaps in mortar’s how we mend.