Vessel

I press my palms into the earth made soft,

a lump of clay heavy as silence,

waiting to remember what it was made for.

The wheel hums.

It spins like a memory I can finally hear.

And I lean in

thumbs pressing, hands steady,

guiding what was once just dirt,

into the suggestion of form.

It wobbles.

It resists.

The clay pushes back like it doesn’t trust me.

So I breathe slower.

I match its rhythm.

I learn its language through pressure and patience.

Walls rise where there were none.

A hollow opens where my hands demand it.

Shape emerges

not perfect,

but real,

fragile in its wetness,

already whispering of what it might hold.

Into the fire it goes.

The kiln roars,

transforming mud into memory,

fragility into permanence.

What I pull out later

is more than a bowl.

It is proof.

That something drawn from the earth,

through hands, through flame,

can carry water,

carry offerings,

carry meaning.

It began as soil.

Now it’s a vessel.

And so am I.

© 2026 A Broken Poet

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