by Jill Gewirtz
Spontaneous Gradient
On Tuesday at 5, in this ghost town
abstracting the West, I’m plumed on the couch
when the groundskeeper knaps on my door.
He hands me a black card, loose-affixed dangling
heart, thin from a ribbon, turning, unwinding.
The screen startles shut. Slow moth, eave. I’m so new
here I hardly know the raffish
glaze of sky when the moon tongues it
to reclining. The tuff slope rippled through fireweed.
Don’t know next day, sunsquint, a routine. This card is clotted
closed with red wax, like I used to do
as a girl, bedecking the neckline
of my envelopes and sealing my naked
amusements and small shames within. Two cats roam
the door, angle and sinew, uncontainable, ready
to drub bats and mice, leave remains. When I break
through the seal, I find an invitation
to a tea party at twilight. Equal part composed
flowers and whorled borders. Don’t be late!
the card floats from its tender mouth. And the party was
a pleasure, laughswirl and edged hats and spare
hungers and chairs, cakes, liquors in little glasses.
Then I come out to another party: the shivering
glittering light shore. Star veins. Upside-down
gable and leaf and the last raspberry of light. It’s perfect here,
indecent. I keep my mouth open to the spirit
of summer. All I have to carry
is what’s left of the future.
Lauren Camp is the author of five books, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press), which Publishers Weekly calls a “stirring, original collection.” Her poems have appeared in Witness, Ecotone, Poet Lore and Beloit Poetry Journal. Honors include the Dorset Prize and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, the Housatonic Book Award and the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Her poems have been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, and Arabic. www.laurencamp.com
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.