Author Information
On Marrying a Polish Woman
Upon watching the flaming clay
Melt and bubble in the tarnished tin can
The hot blue-flame, disfiguring
The carefully crafted faces
He gazed, defeated
She had laughed at his work!
What he had spent many years on
Creating and manipulating
The red-clay with his cracked hands
He had made the First Man
Eyes a-blaze with blissful ignorance
His modeled man stood erect,
Strong and firm
His chest: bare and defined
By the articulate impression of the clay
And there, resting at his feet, was a woman
Born from his rib.
Her arms clinging tightly around his shapely calves
Her eyes looking up at him
As a dog to its owner
She was like a little marionette
He was as big as a God
They both melted away together in the tarnished tin can
He stared vacantly at his work
Lost
Watching the sizzling clay steam
His thoughts were of the snake, the tree,
And the bitten pomegranate
She asked the old man during dinner that night,
While he was cutting away his lamb from the bone
If he had finished his pottery yet
“I lit it on fire”
She sipped loudly at her wine
And buttered her bread
