The potter’s hands know the way
how to hold and mold
wet clay upon the wheel
with centering force, body braced
and palms poised as the unshaped mass
spins upward and out, childhood art become
adult occupation, obsession, fixation, possession
a new thought taking shape within the potter’s mind,
an idea digging its thumbs in deep, pressing out new space
this desire to mold something more than mere inert earth
finding rightness in the slope of these amphoral curves
til a lifetime’s uncomfortable clay bursts apart and
who was Gene awakens as Jeannie instead
genie freed at last from her self
imposed imprisonment
within the bottle
of illusion