Walk into the studios of the Torpedo Factory and
you’ll see the potters in residence surrounded by pressure.
When they sit at their wheels, hands wet and steady,
they know there are thousands of spectral hands
guiding them as they throw and pull.
The creaky, wooden stools they sit on are as
heavy as the ancestral seats of the master craftsmen
from their home countries, each splash of dried clay
a scar of the time lost to the spiral of the wheel.
From the friction of skin against clay,
the potters think of heat, whether it’s from
Raku firing or from a fire pit, and how they’re
required to be close to the source.
Walk around the Torpedo Factory,
you’ll see other ways these potters chose
to pass on what potters before them learned.
Some focused on brush stroke glazing,
echoing cranes and pandas from the bamboo forests.
Others colored their wares the colors of
wildflowers from arcadia or herbs the women would pick.
But it’s not just the potters who feel the pressure.
You’ll touch their wares, hone in on the gloss
along the lip of a mug, trace over the ridges in
a spoon rest or jewelry dish, feel the immense weight
of a ramen bowl in your hands.
Maybe you’ll just notice how many
of these potters focused on the body,
how they remembered the curves of hips,
the striking profiles of those no longer here,
the exaggeration they gave to eyes and necks.
When you walk out of the Torpedo Factory,
you’ll wonder what you can create with your hands,
and how much of that desire to build and shape
comes from those who don’t want you to forget them.
Alex Carrigan (he/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Alexandria, VA. He is the author of Now Let’s Get Brunch (Querencia Press, 2023) and May All Our Pain Be Champagne (Alien Buddha Press, 2022).