Salt Kiln

The potter's hands are elsewhere now, gone to bed with clay still lodged beneath the half-moons of her nails, and the kiln ticks its cooling gospel to no one.

Inside, the glaze has done what fire always does to patience— turned it luminous. A bowl sits pearl-throated in the dark, wearing the exact blue of a lake seen once from a train window.

She will lift it out at dawn, turn it in the grey light and find the warped lip, the crawl where silica refused to melt, and love it anyway—the way we love all things that nearly became something else.

Salt crystals cling to the brick walls, each one a small cathedral of what the flame gave up. The kiln breathes out, and the yard fills with the smell of earth after it has been asked a question.