Away from the morning blaze, parallel
to the district of hotels, quite
special: under a bridge, flanked by minarets,
—that tiny shop that belongs to
the jeweler unknown.
Endless tinkerer of form,
shaping her style in ribbons,
bead crochets, hammered earrings,
blue ceramic eyes needled in,—protected
from the smells of döner and lahmacun.
Beside the languid margins of the Bosphorus,
wide-eyed tourists are snacking open-mouthed,
unhappily sweating. One of them
might wander close by. Observe behind the window
the middle-aged sensualist,
lost in qualifications of beauty.
Occasionally, someone might step into her shop,
casually glance at her epiphanies made tangible:
gold hoops, carved lapis figurines—handmade urges
to arrest motion, reshape insight.
How carelessly they try on a ring, a bracelet.
And when it’s sold, wrapped in paper, stuffed
in a backpack—it leaves in her a spatial melancholy.
That feeling when you trade what’s yours,
an object of pure self—a bland hesitation,
that you might have settled
for less.