Runoff Denial Vessel

I used only the residue of this week: limestone chips from yesterday’s break, porcelain sheets marked by runoff, the glass I swept from under the window. No glazes. I pressed gutter-silt into the clay while it was still damp, grit sticking under my thumbnail. The vessel came up closed; I kept layering, hiding the mouth—first salt, then glass, then stone—until the habit of offering was gone. What’s left is blocked, calcified. Its shape is still a vessel’s, but no one could fill it now. Or empty it. I think of last night’s water roaring beneath the street, uncontained for a moment, then drying to crust and rumor. Old wells sealed by fear, new pipes ruptured by accident. I want to know what’s held when nothing can enter, when the only memory is what clings to the rim. There’s no answer. Only the weight of mineral, a mouth that will not open, and the knowledge that even this was once porous. I leave the bottom edge rough, as if the brine might rise again.