Neck Sealed by Spring

This is what happens when I let the window—the rim green with spring—do the work, rather than my hand. The shape is stubborn, a vessel that should pour, but it’s taken over. There is no pouring. I pressed the limestone fragments in while the porcelain was still soft, thinking of the cistern’s stones, how they once held water back. Now they bleed out, old salt burning through, leaving ghost veins in the glaze. I let the crust build until it closed the neck, more wall than promise. No one will open it. What is inside is not for keeping or giving. I feel the old habit to leave a way in, but this season is about refusal, about what is bricked over and left unnamed. The crust is not decoration, and the plinth stains are from where last year’s rain wouldn’t dry. Sometimes I think the only honest record is in what I cannot recover. Let there be silence above the neck—let the salt say what I can’t.