Vase In Point

You chose me.
Picked me up 
this delicate shadow thin glass vessel
in some antique store by the Asian docks.
Paid for me with peacock feathers and a slice of the star I still see from my window.
Gift wrapped in a shoe box
filled with foreign headlines steaming newspaper ink.
You poked holes in the lid
with your old brass house key.
What a walk home we had that night-
you whistling that tune...
What was it?
That Spanish tune you always sang?
I knew your voice as the first fingerprints of love.
The ships set sail to lapping water on barnacles
and you took me home to candlelight 
and the smell of fresh bread for your dinner.
The poor man's meal.
You unwrapped me and I smiled at you.
My first smile - so wide I almost broke my glass skin.
You filled me with violets and sank bubbled water in my throat.
An evening to remember as my first purpose in life.
Perhaps I mourn you still,
as I get passed from hand to hand
as your family heirloom.
They'll never know you as I did -
I hold your last fingerprint inside me, unwashed, untouched
excepting the last violet stem you graced me with.
You began my history, and I am the end of yours.

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