Cobalt Blue Glaze, by Mary Ellen Talley

The author's mother's blue bowl. Pottery by Ethel Pilik Moran with glaze by Mary Ellen Moran Talley.

Cobalt Blue Glaze

Mom taught fifth graders to roll clay and crimp edges
as well as how to read and spell and multiply

There was a kiln at her school
and that summer mom bussed to the “Y” for pottery classes 

One night at midnight
my boyfriend and I sat kissing good night on my front porch,
long past blooming time of lilacs and roses –

I assumed my mom was inside sleeping 

            until we heard footsteps on the sidewalk
            and straightened up
            just before my mom walked inside the tall hedge

She said she walked the four miles home
because busses had stopped running
           My boyfriend cautioned he would have picked her up –
           a woman alone at night even in our town
           not safe

Years later, I visited her and found each clay piece from that summer
wrapped in newspaper in a box in the back of a low kitchen cupboard

           She said she thought
           for all these years the pieces she had formed
           too thick and rough, unworthy of display 
    
She let me paint and glaze the pieces for her ten grandchildren –
because she was both the rough and smooth of her children’s lives

          I painted vases, cups and bowls the cobalt blue she chose,
          rented kiln space to fire a hard shine,
          included mom’s note before sealing each gift’s fragile handling

My husband, once that boyfriend, helped me carry boxes to the post office
We considered insuring each one for replacement value

           Sometimes I cut flower stems 
           to fit the thick-ribbed vase with mom’s name
           scored on the bottom in her perfect teacher cursive script

Mary Ellen Talley

​Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have recently been published in Raven Chronicles, Banshee, What Rough Beast, Flatbush Review and The Ekphrastic Review as well as in the anthologies, Chrysanthemum and Ice Cream Poems. Her poems have received two Pushcart nominations and a chapbook is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.