Potter’s Wheel

I saw you straight away
although you had to point yourself out
to the avid collector recalling years

you were always on my horizon love
like a maker’s relief embossed on an urn
the artisan ownership engraved

by an apprentice’s hand

how beauty is marked
by the young’s flensing hope
cut down to the bone of broken despair

then braised for dyes to hold shape
in the overlay finish of earthenware

did I tell you I am unfinished and cracked
yet the enamel evokes a chrysalis
no matter how you hold it up to look

First published in Contour the Love Edition, Worcestershire Poet Laureate Magazine.
‘Unstill Mosaics – The Book of Love, Loss, and Longing’ Busybird 2019.
Photo: Luke Tscharke ‘Waratah at the Ampitheatre’ Kunayi/Mt Wellington Tasmania.