I think of you drinking, dancing, unable to sleep, reading until first light, a blanket drawn around your shoulders, afternoons, working your wheel until the time to mingle with true hearts, raise glasses, hug, laugh, help as you can. We are all dying, slower or faster, but it hurts to watch. And out of the numb exuberant wreckage of your days come these raku pots— graceful open shapes, lines freely scratched into the clay, deep turquoise, copper glazes, extravagant, surprised, too beautiful for tears.
After Months
Shifting unstable air, patches of light, raindrops standing on the candy red gas tank of a Kawasaki 750. Coming down harder, bouncing off the seat, dripping from the tips of black rubber handgrips, tach speedometer needles resting on their zero pegs, twin mirrors focused back.
October,
Maine
Fortune Cookie
Almond lemon gritty on the tongue, —TIMES LONG AGO WILL PRESENT A SPECIAL TREASURE TO YOU— A moment whole again? To see more clearly, Trudi, 17, washing in the Woodland Valley stream. Tamey, giving me another nickel to play pinball. Barbara's smile, wanting a child. My grandfather's arm, levering a floor board, skin hanging from his biceps cord, holding while I nailed. So many treasures I can't quite see.
Wrecking Ball, Commercial Street
Salmon streaks of pulverized brick, white pigment, tar, nicked and scarred in every direction, patina of blows on a mute obdurate interior. Six weeks I carried it until the beautiful surface cast off, weightless. The iron opened from the inside out and like a new bell began to sing.
For Elena
The Polynesian Navigator