No crystal. Not till it hit:
a twentieth-anniversary self-present!
They hunted like newlyweds-faces lit
by a prodigal set of 12. Incandescent

merrily mated cronies, shining eyes
mirrored in cut-glass chalices.
At social functions crystal abetted their disguise;
carefully they muzzled all the little malices.

Later, dividing the sparkling dozen,
they find only two intact, unchipped.
They, too, 5/6th shattered by concussion.
Cut down by history's hidden script.

Janet Tracy Landman