Fire my Clay to Cup – a poem by Mary Alice Dixon

Fire my Clay to Cup


Potter, shape me 
in your hands
with holy heat. 
Turn me to your 
rounded vessel full.

Paint my mouth 
to prayer, Potter, 
dye my lip in juice
turn water into wine,

Fire me big 
with you, Potter,
shape my clay 
to cup. 

Fire my clay to cup
Potter, turn my clay 
to life, make sacred 
blood of sacrament, 
communion 
on newborn 
open lips.

Mary Alice Dixon is a hospice volunteer who finds prayer in reading poetry to the dying. She is a Pushcart nominee whose work appears inGyroscope Review, Kakalak, Main Street Rag, moonShine review, Northern Appalachia Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Pinesong, threePSPP anthologies, and elsewhere. She lives in Charlotte, NC, frequently walking the Stations of the Cross.