Potter
This article originally appeared in Southern Exposure Vol. 4 No. 4, "Generations: Women in the South." Find more from that issue here.
With force you become what you don’t care about,
bored with this endless spinning. Everywhere
there is a sound of clay being slapped round;
small skulls bump on the wheel.
This place is thick with midwives.
As my hands
lose their skin and take on yours,
wet and dirt-smelling,
I feel your slag, your indifference.
These shapes are what you don’t allow.
I push a wall that gives itself
like blind faith. I pass for God.
Your smell stains my clothes. My knees
join your wheel in the altar
where you take sacrifice.
Cut loose, you sit like a deaf child,
your wet, marred skin
defies my touch.
If I lifted you, you would collapse,
your walls crumbling like trumpets.