Porcelain Movement 1
What Asks to Be Saved
I open the workshop as if unbandaging a wound—
slow, careful, bracing for what’s still tender.
Plaster dust rises in the half‑light,
settling on everything I meant to mend.
On the table, another porcelain girl waits in her box—
fractures threading her face
like a map I’ve traced too many times.
I tell myself to walk back out into the morning,
but the clean split through her cheek
pulls me forward before I can turn.
My hands move before I agree to anything.
I’ve sworn I’m finished with this work,
yet they keep arriving—
swaddled in tissue,
their silence already tugging at the part of me
that never learned to refuse.
Her face loosens under my touch—
a seam giving way,
a fault line bright as a thin blade of light.
Damage repeats itself with such fluency
I barely need to look
to know where the next fracture runs—
and still, I can’t set her down
she looks at me the way no one else does—
as if I might know how to save her.
13 thoughts on "Porcelain Movement 1"
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You can definitely sense a deeper story here, that something big happened in this room that leaves the narrator wary of re-entering, something beyond simply being unable to mend the porcelain girls.
And the description of the girls themselves is very haunting, the anthropomorphizing of them asking to be saved.
You are dead on L. Coyne! I am always so satisfied with your diagnosis of my writing. You always make me feel so understood.
So captivating with your words- “the clean split in her cheek pulls me forward before I can turn”. You treat these dolls with a delicateness with suspected layers to more depth as L.Coyne says.
I appreciate you noticing, but you know I can’t reveal everything just yet!
Oh that!
“fault line bright as a thin blade of light.”
And I echo what they said.
haunting and yet not, simple and yet…
Nice.
simple and yet…
that is exactly what I strive for!
ooooo, a new series….
What L, Linda, and Coleman said.
Especially love: “a fault line bright as a thin blade of light.”
I thought about waiting until next summer, but I can’t carry this any longer. Thanks, Pam!
So beautiful in its detail, and in its array of meanings for the reader!
I sense deep meaning here, Jeremy!
There is a sadness and an element of hope lingers somewhere between the lines.
“Damage repeats itself with such fluency
I barely need to look
to know where the next fracture runs—”
Intuitive.
Wow. This has such rich detail. Showing us the love-hate passion of the job and the deft hands required by such a task. It leaves me guessing as to its deeper meaning, though, and perhaps H.A. said it best, there is a deep-seated melancholy to this piece that lingers after reading.
“I open the workshop as if unbandaging a wound—
slow, careful, bracing for what’s still tender.”
“she looks at me the way no one else does—
as if I might know how to save her.”
Jeremy – You certainly know how to take away my breath!
Always leave them wanting more – can’t wait for the continuation.