Poem of the Week: Glazing

By Susan Gewirtz

We look up through branches
We’re drunk on heat,
The leaves in perfect clusters
Distill the yellow light,
The noon sun hangs fiercely,
The forest’s strobe-lit islands
Float in shadows;

Here we separate from negative time,
The brown clay of our bodies
Thrown from the earth,
We stretch like wire,
We soak till all our
Course grains wash up,
We’re kneaded soft;

Like two hallow vessels
We spin on the potter’s wheel,
We take on shapes,
We’re glazed in hues of
Celadon, of peach and bloodruby,
We’re baked by fire till
Our see-through layers harden,
Till crazed like ancient eyes
We’re finished deep.