by C.J. Sellers
“I must be cruel only to be kind.”~Shakespeare, Hamlet
It occurred to her, in the shower, how
she, a writer, could call herself a sculptor.
Like cleansing, it began as an ambition to be finer
but as it turned out, her life’s art was not
revealing the form within the raw mass
but from the randomness of her life–
she saw herself wanting to find shape.
Intentioned hands feel their way around
like a world-maddened blind man’s that spread
over a lover’s face, seeking recognition.
As augurs seeking portents, these hands
are clumsy gods of clays, waxes, butters,
they, hot knives, cleave grace from error,
they strike and gouge at hard stubbornness
and only mollify in retrospect,
as each piece deemed chaff is dead
wood, stone, or clay that must/needs fall away
they comfort as it, reminding, pleads its case.