From the pipe works.(Poem)

 
FROM THE PIPE WORKS 
 
   Stolen clay 
   sliced from the block 
   with wire, like ripe cheese, 
   lumpen grey yet soft as silk, 
   despite the grit--this 
   was your gift. 
 
   To us it was a child's toy 
   lugged home in a hessian sack, 
   moulded into rows 
   of pallid, earthen men, 
   round eyed, arms wide, 
   drying in the sun. 
 
   For you it was the unyielding 
   stuff of labour, 
   slime-slurried as you hefted, 
   shaped and finished, 
   fingers always wet, 
   numb in ...