Bone China

by Lee Nash

I begin as dust – ash and white –

crushed ossein with feldspar,

powdered glass, fluxed, now clay

 

slaked for the wheel’s cool head.

I am in your hands, under,

between your hands. You feel

 

the lacuna not in bone but bole,

press out flaws with skilled fingers,

slowly pull me to form;

 

caress me with wet hands,

cut me with your ribs,

whirling mud in damp delight.

 

Giddy, I appear,

thrown, submissive, cleaved –

yet coming into my power.

 

Leather-hard, now leave

your mark, delicate sgraffito

beneath my coat, my fine slip,

 

the linear stroke, gestural score

with sharpened and blunt pen

tools. Now take your crazed bisque,

 

crackled and combed,

fettled and feathered, to the fire,

the point of fusion, glaze-high.

 

Never break me. My dust is dangerous –

stays in the lungs forever.

Yet do not put me on display,

 

rather let me stay on your lips.

Fill me with your pleasure –

hot, steaming, fragrant.

 

 

(First published in Sentinel Literary Quarterly, August 2015.)

 


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