Cracked Earth

When I let my hand climb,
in each place I find a dove
that was looking for me,
as if my love,
they had made you out of clay
for my very own potter's hands.

A habit of mind,
a cerebral confluency,
a found form,
an uncovered order,
dots connected,
a song of spokes
whirring radiant
round an unseen hub;
a blasted intersection
of seeming unrelated themes
perhaps akin to the naming of constellations.


Face among faces, arm among arms,
fingers among a phalanx of foreigners
and the flux of young employees
at the neighborhood cafe
performing the rote manipulations
at the hissing espresso bar.


A flash of abused cuticles
centered my unfocused eye,
a tattoo (somewhat subtle),
the boho jewelry and my
immediate imagination is
artist, artisan, painter, potter.
Potter; yes, potter.


And I could see it,
the long leg pumping
the potter's wheel about,
caked fingers into the water bowl dipped,
the spinning surface slickly shaped
beneath the deft, earth-knowledge
of her dedicated digits.


That same week I found myself
prowling 'mongst Neruda translations,
audibly gnashing my teeth
at the persistent presence
of some so bewilderingly bad
yet extant 'mid their better brethren.


I presented Los Versos del Capitan
to a lady but just familiar
with the name behind the
now interred Chileans tectonic talent.


Completely unpredicted,
a fortnight aftreward,
the way she moved,
seemed to turn and grow,
flushflowerflutterform,
beneath my dumb-struck,
love-numbed hands...


so shockingly so that
reaching into my pocket,
ponying up for a cappuccino
some shattered weeks later,
wincing then waggling
my own ragged fingers,
that same barrista
expressed her sympathy,
noted nonchanlantly that,
as a maker of jewelry,
she suffered similarly,
which tripped my wierd-wired mind,
sent a tremor through my marrows.


The merest, remotest reminders
(much less direct recollections)
of that sosculptedsmooth mocha hip,
that fine, scared, wide-eyed,
fertile daughter from twixt
whose supple lips my name
will slip no more and
beneath this breastbone(sudden)
shifts that eccentric
four-vaulted fault.


Not potter but artisan.


Nice, I guess,
that the instincts are
still somewhat intact.