Revisionist Poetry – Promises in the Dust: Carver’s Kit, v.2

In the dusty corner of my studio
a mountain of tools keeps vigil —
brushes crusted like dried-up combs,
a stack of canvases breathing dust.
Soapstone waits, cool as a riverbone;
clay sits in its bowl, damp and patient.

My chest lifts when I imagine the first cut,
the knife opening a soft, secret grain,
fingers shaping, pressing, answering.
I collect these things as if they were promises,
a compulsive inventory of might-begins.

Each morning I swear I’ll start:
I move the jars, count the blades, make plans.
Then the pile reads back at me — a map of coulds —
and my hands, trained for work, grow still.

There is a small joy stacked behind fear:
the feel of clay warming to my palm,
the scrape of stone taking a curve.
Someday — I tell myself — I will break the heap
and let the first wet finger speak.