by Jill Gewirtz
Where the graves end
One wise woman told me the thing that mattered
most was my experience, what I knew to be true.
A second wise woman told me she’d heard
the voice of God in Australia, deep in trance.
A wise man propping up the bar where I served
him in the pub said I was in the wrong place
at the right time or the right place with the wrong
person—he wasn’t clear. The stout was too cloudy.
One night there was a fight beneath my window
as it spilled from the nightclub doors into the street.
I followed the trail of blood
to work the next morning.
One morning I got to work and the glass door
was smashed. Nothing was stolen; they didn’t get in.
One summer I lived in a little room and it surprised
me to find I’d been hiding there for years, waiting.
One evening was every evening: sitting on the bank
of the estuary, waving to Tilbury, dreaming of sea.
Kate Garrett is a writer with witchy ways and a significant folklore, history, and horror obsession. Her work is widely published online and in print, and has been nominated for Best of the Net, Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for a Saboteur Award. Her historical verse novella Hart & Ha’penny was published in March 2021 by TwistiT Press, and her new collection Sunward/Moonwise is forthcoming from Impspired in Summer 2021. Born and raised in rural southern Ohio, USA, Kate moved to the UK in 1999, where she still lives – currently on the Welsh border with her husband, children, pets, and plants. Find her on Instagram – @thefolklorefaery – and her website www.kategarrettwrites.co.uk.
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.