"All that is left"

A poem about shards

I’m reading about the lives of ancient women. Mythic women. Women in the Bronze Age whose bodies were considered prizes and spoils of war. I’m thinking about the casual way in which Homer’s stories had women, queens, princesses, beg their husbands to stop fighting.
Stories painted on shards of pots. Carefully put together in a lab. Showing women waiving goodbye to soldiers.

Shards.

Shards.

Shards.

Put together. Arranged.

We are not so different, us, in our so-called “modern world”. Our bodies are still prizes, our voices are still silenced. Prizes of war.

So I put together these shards, all that remains of a song painted on a plate. But not well arranged, not methodical. No clinical resolve of someone who’s tangentially interested, academically inclined. No white coat.

My bloody fingers putting together a puzzle.

“All that is left” (2026), Porcelain on stoneware.

Photo Credits: Elisabetta Lombardo

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Thank you for reading. I have taken some time to regroup and discern about what I want to write about. I am also taking writing classes and working on longer pieces, while leaning into the fact that my writing and my artistic practice in the studio go hand-in-hand. Thank you for being here.