William Faulkner's Telephone
Rowan Oak
Oxford, Mississippi

“We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place.  We stay there even though we go away.  And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.  We travel to ourselves when we go to a place that we have covered a stretch of our lives no matter how brief it may have been.”

             -Amadeu de Almeid Prado

WHEN WHAT IS MADE TO FUSE TOGETHER CANNOT

She said it’s safe to speak

In the language of pottery

Like a body it’s a gift

From the soft bottom upward

Across time 
And rumors of the smoke shadow face

Of its creator

And the scent of ancient pollen

Entombed in caramel glaze

A delicate neck painted in birds

With child’s hair

A necklace jeweled

From punched bone

A lip so full

So thirsty

It spills cold water from within

Coil memory skin

Breathing

Cooling

Cracking when fired too hot

When what is made to fuse together cannot