A Slender Night Arc

I walked back through the front door after my afternoon in the pottery studio, ready to settle down in the warm lamplight. On the walnut side table, someone had left an uncoiled bronze paper fastener sitting beside an unused porcelain chopstick rest. Leaving such precise curves disconnected felt like an open design question. Stepping alongside them, I took the flexible bronze prong with both palms, arching its polished tip until it hooked snugly beneath the ceramic crest. It sprang into a taut, poised miniature bridge, hovering over the timber grain. I nudged my glasses up and quietly admired our new evening monument.