the potter is back from hand surgery,/given a green light for unrestricted hand-use. the strictures against water-submersion/and lifting anything heavier than a box of tissues/have been waived goodbye.

now it is time to make stuff./he pretends to be receiving a secret recording á la the old tv spy show “mission: impossible.”

good morning, mr. feldspar. the clay you are looking at is a cone-five porcellaneous clay body colloquially known as “cashmere.” it is fine-grained and will fire white in both bisque and glaze. your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use two one-kilogram portions of this clay, sculpting a bird worthy of gallery display with one portion, and crafting a sixteen-ounce mug of swan-like elegance with the other. as always, if either or both creations prove to be unremarkable, you must disavow the existence of one or both unremarkable creations, rewedging the clay, which isn’t cheap, for a future attempt. good luck, frank. this recording will shelf-destruct in five seconds.

and then comes the fun part,/selecting his mission accomplices from the tools in the studio./like dan briggs and then jim phelps of old,/he peruses the candidates one by one/and puts his choices aside./soon he has françois garrote, the wire tool;/marlo and nero v., the sponge siblings;/natasha stiletto, the needle tool;/arnold t. thyme, the wood rib;/joe kingly, the ribbon trimmer;/and cannes openair, the pry tool.

he beams.

“are we ready, lady and gentlemen?”

they rattle, squinch and scratch in nod-equivalents.

the mission leader smiles, dips marko v. in the bucket-water,/and begins.