Faience

Bowl, earthenware, painted in blue
on opaque white glaze, 9th century

It was no accident that slipped tin
and lead onto an earthenware skin—
rather, a someone who knew how
to bring the white clouds down to
sit on the clay. One trader may buy
up the whole lot for its novelty, no
telling, but the maker had a bigger
game in mind. Tin for Jupiter, lead
for Saturn, fired hotter than a kiln,
forge-hot, melting Venus’s copper
cestus if she’d let it; and then slow
to cool. Alchemy turned the pottery
gloss white, the perfect ground for
figures and brushwork—something
tough enough to take the flame and
not crack in two, and yet a thing too
fragile for a trader’s carpet-packing.