MC Hyland

Lozenge, n.

                [6. Form of escutcheon used by unmarried women.]

Mark the spinster behind the window. Blue dress, fleurs-de-lys.  

Lozenged pane, the sun glares through. Fish-scale glass, brocade.

A border azure with golden martlets. A bend sable, three silver scallops thereon.

A double tressure flowered and counterflowered. Gules three pales vair and a chief gold.

I was never an old maid—I was twenty-four when I married your grandfather.

My sister was thirty-five when she married—she will always be an old maid.

perhaps derived from a word meaning a stone slab laid on a grave; appears in such forms

as Provençal lousa, origin unknown, Lat. laus, praise, in the sense of epitaph, suggested

Unmarried women carry the undifferenced arms of their fathers. Married women carry

the shield of their husband or father, both side by side, or both shields impaled.

A lozenge was once lozenge-shaped—a small, square cake.

Perhaps a petit-four, thin pink frosting with a sugared rose on top.  

1897 Encycl. Sport I. 341/2: slang term for a circular piece of leather with a hole in the center

to fit round the mouthpiece of the bit. The horse’s mouth drips spit; she takes the bit.

Herringbone coat, grey wool, woven. Cashmere scarf, cashmere lined gloves.

40 degrees: not cold but damp. Hot tea for the throat, cough drops.

A ramping lion on the sinister side. Eagle embroidered on the imperial gloves. 

Hatchment of an Esquire—arms impaled with those of his wife. The wife surviving.

Right to bear arms. Tournament law: combatants must prove four generations of arms-

bearing ancestors to enter. I will ride for my widowed mother, for her diamond shield. 

But what of the femme sole, widow, virgin, spinster, old maid, maiden?

You live alone? they asked her. Aren’t you scared?

“Well-born spinsters of full age were all but unknown

outside the walls of religious houses.” Catherine of Siena, Christ’s foreskin as wedding ring.

Blue shield powdered with golden fleurs-de-lys. Silver a fesse between two gemels gules.

Henry II is said to have added the third leopard in right of his wife (a legend of no value).

Miss Greene went to Connecticut for Christmas vacation.  When third grade

started again, her hair was different and her name was Mrs. Stevenson.

used also to denote the diamond-shaped facets of a precious stone when cut (in ferrionière;

sévigné brooches en échelle; stone set à jour on a gold band)

We were secretly married, she said, before we were married by law.

But then I got pregnant. We had the ceremony in February.

Ermine a fesse cheeky gold and gules. Ermine a lozenge with a pierced molet thereon.

Party gold and sable bendwise with a lion countercoloured. Azure three roses gold.

When I was twenty-three, my grandmother said: It’s too bad

you’ll never marry. You like children so much.

A lozenge was once lozenge-shaped. Menthol, eucalyptus, cherry, grape,

honey-lemon, chamomile, citrus blend, echinacea, zinc, Fisherman’s Friend.

1. A rhombus that is not a square.  2. A small medicated candy intended to be dissolved

slowly in the mouth to lubricate and soothe irritated tissues of the throat. 

What is on the lady’s tongue? A pastille, jujube, tablet, troche, pill, candy, bolus,

dose, cachou, dragee, pastil? How does madam feel today? Are we quite well?

some posit Latin lapis (“stone”) or Spanish losa (“slab”).  A stone shaped like a rhombus

(not a square). Hard against the teeth. It starts at the grave; finishing in the throat.