Coggins & Mureddu – Feb. 16
Angel Aragón Mureddu and Lauren Coggins traded art and words. Angel shared this piece, entitled “Daedalus 1,” with Lauren:
In response, Lauren wrote this poem:
When I Worked At the Camera Shop
We’d stand by the two-eyed cameras
in the case, Mr. Butcher and I,
those twin lenses looking back
in parallax – the Rolleis and Yashicas,
a Seagull or two – their frames of view
like little Venn diagrams. I would start
to find myself alone on the sales floor,
the others having slipped away at the sight
of his senescent Buick outside, his white shirt
and brown trousers. He always made
for the bargain bins of mismatched straps
and cases, and those oldest
of our used cameras – like buddies
he’d come to see. He said he’d carried
cameras like them in the Army, and later
with his wife, on the Queen Mary
to Europe. Mechanical and modest,
made to be cradled at the waist
and looked down into, with viewfinders
of ground glass, with cranks and winders
and soft spoken shutters
that, winking, had once in the colors
and contrast of Kodachrome
told him a heck of a thing.
* * * * *
Lauren shared this poem with Angel:
A Night and the Next Morning
I am tired tonight,
when I think how we drift
like stars across the dark desert
of sky, oases lost
in the city’s perennial glow.
Orion points his chest
toward a moonrise almost
formality – a habit
we might break
if we cared, rote reminder
of days dwindling
to winter Solstice.
The routine of our own fading
condenses memories
to snapshots, a night
and the next morning
becoming moments –
in a year
just a silhouette, that trace
of dust on the table,
or the way good morning
sounded guilty
In response, Angel made this photograph, entitled “Where the Star Rests Everyday (Absence)”: