by K.G. Ricci
Broken Photo of the Musician
for Pinson
You can’t eat the pinging echoes of porcelain
and you dropped your porridge.
The record scratched.
Outside the airy chime of a beetle smeared,
twitching as if waving.
Your kitty made a joke of that farewell.
This is how those blessed with vision
imagine the blind see:
Where there’s shadow, there’s light and
you believe every reflection
and forget how you really look.
You’ve had hangovers worse than this.
I see a nut and a bolt though,
so something is held together.
It means you will not complete every task
but your cat will not go unfed.
This photo is better suited to an audiophile
as a guide of how to muffle sound.
Flanked by all that shapes memory,
unalone in grief,
you will remember each distortion,
every amplified mourner,
every slip into darkness a dance move.
Dustin King would always rather be sneaking a bottle of wine into a movie theater. When nothing good is playing, he teaches Spanish and runs a small organization that provides aid to the undocumented community in Richmond, VA. His poems pop up in the Potomac Review, Ligeia, Drunk Monkeys, and Sublunary Review. His poem “The Middle” appears in The Time Issue of Feral. You can find him reading his poetry on IG @dustinking82.
K.G. Ricci is a self-taught NYC artist who has been creating collages for the past seven years. In that time his work has evolved from the larger 24×48 panels to 7×10 books and most recently to a series of 18×24 collages on cardboard titled Incongruities. His work has been in gallery exhibitions throughout the country, and he has appeared in numerous on-line exhibitions. Many of Ken’s most recent “visual stories” have been featured in several literary magazines. Instagram @kennethricci