Reclaimed Clay

By Jacqueline Modugno

My love for you found itself
Sitting in the birch tree whose branches
spanned into the heavens when I was a child.
Splintered sheets of bark that I now realize
Only lean a few feet above
the blades of grass.
Though I value the presence of that tree like a pulse on my wrist
The knocking of my own heartbeat against my neck
begging me to speak for it.
My love for you found itself in a bucket of smashed forms
Masterpieces that held attention for a moment’s notice
before malleability won greater appeal.
Reclaimed clay within my consciousness
Because what is not worth keeping the first time,
Can often be reduced to its fundamentals
to be formed again.