Volume 12, 2012

I Made a Vessel

Valerie Wohlfeld

I made a vessel painted blue and gray.
On the potter’s wheel it spun round and round—
therapy after a nervous breakdown.
Like Adam it began as dark red clay.
The rim was cracked like a rose on a day
of rain, petals scattered deformed without a sound.
In blue and gray, it didn’t bleed, this wound,
and in the fire hardened its glazed underlay.
I too had come through some elemental
fire, injured like the little lip in ruin
and I too felt a mood of blue and gray.
I too was clay and fire’s accidental
mix—like this vessel I hold in my palm
I knew the calm after the flame’s doomsday.

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