Thirty-seven bowls in thirty-seven days. Each one different: the glaze, the depth, how it sat in two hands. She'd made them separately, each its own question about what a bowl could be.
Her partner laid them out on the long table. Stepped back.
"They all lean the same way."
She looked. Different rims, different colors, some handles, some not. But every bowl's weight sat slightly left. Every pour spout opened east. Every base wore thinner on the same side.
She'd always spun the wheel the same direction. That wasn't new. Something else had shifted — her posture, maybe, since the stool leg needed shimming. Or the light, since the elm came down. Something she'd adjusted to without noticing the adjustment.
"What changed?" he asked.
She picked up the latest bowl. Felt the weight favor her left palm. Set it down.
"I don't know. But it's been changing for thirty-seven days."
*
The next morning she threw another bowl. She didn't try to correct the lean. She didn't try to preserve it. She put her hands where her hands went and the clay rose under them, and when she cut it off the wheel, it was what it was.