Salt Kiln

The potter's hands know a language older than any alphabet— thumbs pressing the wobbling wall thinner, coaxing a bowl from what was field mud and rain's slow patience.

She stacks the kiln like a city of unfired promises, each piece leaning into the next the way strangers shelter together under an awning in a storm.

All night the fire speaks in orange and the clay listens, tightening, shedding its memory of water. By morning the glaze has run into rivers no map will name.

She pulls the first bowl free still ticking with heat, and holds it to the light— this thing that was earth, that passed through fire, that will carry someone's meal home.