Toshiko Takaezu’s Closed Mouth Vase
If there’s an accident—the vase shatters—
three or four shards will reveal words
scored with a stylus before Takaezu
pinched the mouth closed.
One might read spring,
a fragment in the alluvial scatter.
The artist, a woman of these times,
thought ahead. She reminds the stricken owner
that even an irreplaceable world
offers tidings from the wet clay of its creation
hidden until the old form breaks open.
three or four shards will reveal words
scored with a stylus before Takaezu
pinched the mouth closed.
One might read spring,
a fragment in the alluvial scatter.
The artist, a woman of these times,
thought ahead. She reminds the stricken owner
that even an irreplaceable world
offers tidings from the wet clay of its creation
hidden until the old form breaks open.
The Fairlies selection in each issue of West Trestle Review features a reprint poem or story written by a woman of color or non-binary writer of color and published at least one year ago in a print-only publication. "Toshiko Takaezu’s Closed Mouth Vase" originally appeared in Dominguez-Abraham's full-length collection, Coyote Logic, Blue Oak Press, 2018, p. 45.
Lisa Dominguez-Abraham 's collection Mata Hari Blows a Kiss won the 2016 Swan Scythe Chapbook Contest, and her 2018 book Coyote Logic came out from Blue Oak Press. She teaches at Cosumnes River College.
Art: Molly Dunham