My first slip: the plaster knife that caught the morning light at 0400, when the Hoosic River valley needed true.
I did not sweep the shavings. I poured the vein.
The fracture in the wall was not a flaw—it was the place the light would enter.
In the mill house, the varnish lifted at 0347. In the studio, the pigment settled at 0400. In the hand, the trowel marked the seam that binds us.