I was in love ....

.... as soon as I opened the top of the kiln
this morning.

290 degrees centigrade and my leather gloves
smouldering and burning through to my flesh,
the layers of copper oxide, manganese oxide,
silica carbide, feldspar potash, cornish stone,
iron oxide, bentonite, that are her skin that
injures me, I take her out.

And here she is.

Simone Weil said that the injuries sustained
(the thumb struck by the hammer, the stone
dropped on the foot, the hand gashed by the carving knife)
while learning a craft
are the trade entering the body.

Love is a funny thing.