The mound

A heron waited in the shallows. The glaze ran, and the white drip looked exactly like the foam at its feet.

Two tickets sat on the counter for a train we kept not taking. The mug went the color of the station bricks.

Missed the boat, then pretended it was an accident. The navy is the water after the wake leaves.

A cream envelope turned up inside a teapot at a Saturday market, addressed and never stamped. We did not open it.

Lavender thread, a dented thimble, a cup that was never meant for a rush-hour coffee.

We did not buy the bowl. The splash on this mug is someone else's brush, one stroke and done.

Radio low. Pancakes that went a little too far. Yellow like the counter before the day starts.

A sage mug, coffee still warm, a note that just said back in ten. The ten became a conversation.

String lights that almost worked. A cake that slumped and was better for it. Someone pinched the clay.

The hour the kettle goes on anyway. Amber all the way through. Thick walls, long sit.

The kiln that fired this one ran hot and a little mean. Ash crawled the rim and broke into iron. Another potter's accident, and a good one.

Speckled like a bank after rain. The iron spots were not placed. They showed up, and the potter left them.

A small pitcher for cream, or for whatever you pretend is optional. Same water as the harbor mug.

A small plate for the slice you were going to split. Butter glaze, uneven rim, happy to be extra.

A bull and rider still in the air, a rope that never quite lands, and a crackle glaze that has already lived somewhere else.

Three bees, two words, and a yellow interior bright enough to count as a mood.

A fire, a tent, a pine, and the sentence you belong here, printed like it had been waiting for a shelf.