She Was Still a Tyro in Pottery

 

The jars, of course, had plans of their own,

one deciding it was actually a hat,

another insisted it was a submarine,

though its porcelain periscope failed the test.

The whole kiln, a cabinet meeting of rogue diplomats,

each demanding asylum in the junk drawer.

 

Her hands, agents of chaos,

coaxed goblins from the clay,

each more convinced of its importance than the last.

One jar, convinced it was a time machine,

refused to hold applesauce without generating paradox,

while another, self-identified as the reincarnation of Plato,

lectured the spoons on virtue and patience.

 

She laughed, knowing these jars were her army,

unruly but loyal, conspirators in her quest

to turn the mundane into the magnificently absurd.

The kitchen sighed in resignation,

under the rule of the mad potter and her motley court,

where every crack and imperfection

was an invitation to a waltz

with the ungraspable edge of reality.