RESTAURANT TEAPOTS

A teapot,
One of thousands.
Made in a factory with chimneys as high as mountains.
and gates as wide as lakes.
Fired, glazed and painted with blue fish.

The portly potter bends, the paintbrush poised.
And dips it into the Prussian Blue.
He lifts the oily tip.
And gently dabs the teapot.

He can't help himself.
Everyday he paints a thousand fish onto a thousand teapots.
Every fish he paints is different.
Each one he invests with a creative care beyond his control.
The whorls of his fingertips twirl the paintbrush.
Rolling from side to side into fins and eyes and tails and fish.

The teapot is taken off the conveyor belt, packed up and crated off to a ship.
Handed from City to City.
Busy, busy.
The teapot is breifly brushed by a workhard man.
Nails ingrained with kitchen grease his fingers skim the glistening glaze.
His waiter in his restaurant (same chef since 1990) fills the teapot with aromatic tea and carries it to a table.
It sits looking at you and me.