Cloissone

It sounds like metal-lined flowers blooming in pools of enamel. It sounds like it looks.

I’d heard the word in passing but never knew how it looked. It would roll around my head for days. And then, one afternoon while walking in Geneva, I found a jewelry store by the same name.

In Geneva you can stand quiet in a square and hear a dozen languages spoken. The word itself seems like it could be made up of as many languages, but means the same thing in almost every one.