by Jill Gewirtz
Cygnus
Start with something small. It doesn’t matter what:
a wet teabag flattened on the back of a spoon, or a rice biscuit,
white and dry and paper-light, fresh-pulled from the tin.
My gaze falls on a midden of litter: tea wrappers, notes,
a phone full of messages unpaid, conversations not complete.
The tea is sweet and hot. It warms my hands around the mug,
memento of my voyage from our far-distant home. The biscuit cracks
and dissolves beneath the tannin wash. Even this far from there,
spoons and teabags have not changed. Unpaid bills accrete.
The words I still must pay for hang above me like a veil.
He is not here. Start with something small.
David Milley has written and published verse since the mid-1970s, while earning a living as a technical writer and web applications developer. His work has appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Christopher Street, and Bay Windows; more recently, in Friends Journal and Queerbook. Retired now, David lives in southern New Jersey with his husband of forty-five years, Warren Davy, who’s made his living as a farmer, woodcutter, nurseryman, auctioneer, beekeeper, and cook. These days, Warren tends his garden and keeps honeybees. David walks and writes.
Jill Gewirtz ( she/ hers) is a native New Yorker who has been creating art, be it music, photography, jewelry making, since childhood. Currently, she is doing photo construction, sculptural work with photographs, collages, transfers on mirrors and image transparency film transfers. Her image from the Museum of the City of New York’s show ‘Rising Waters, Hurricane Sandy’ was recently accepted into the permanent collection at the Museum of the City of New York. Her photos have appeared in museum group shows at Marin Museum, Marietta Cobb, Masur, Katonah, Monmouth, Attleboro, Griffin and Hockaday and Cica Museums of Art and Berlin Biennial with the Julia Cameron Awards. Jessica Porter curated a small group show including Gewirtz and 2 painters, Joyce Pommer and Elise Freda at the Yard in New York. Most recently her work has been in multiple shows at Con Artist Collective in the Lower East Side.