The posset pot — a two-handled, lidded vessel for posset, a hot drink of milk curdled with wine or ale and spiced — appears in seventeenth-century domestic poems as an emblem of sociable comfort and the culture of the sickroom; A poem about a wedding night in the seventeenth century might include the posset pot: "the guests brought it to the door and left — the spiced drink prepared for two, the pot between them, the handles their handles"; In a poem about convalescence, the posset pot is the vessel of recovery: cinnamon, nutmeg, wine, the practitioner's faith that warmth and spice would turn the body's tide; The posset pot's elaborate form — with its lid and spout for straining the curds from the whey — gives it a ceremonial quality, suited to poems about objects that exist at the intersection of the practical and the ritual; Delftware and slipware posset pots survive in museum collections, their inscriptions — "A Gift for My Love" or "Be Merry and Wise" — making them already halfway to poetry; A poem about an early modern kitchen might describe the making of posset: the wine poured hot into the milk, the curdling, the straining — and the pot waiting, already dressed for ceremony.