Rounds & Huddleston – Sum.10

Mary Huddleston and Heather Rounds traded art. Mary shared the following painting with Heather:

Heather wrote this poem in response:

Tiny Boxes

Let’s just forget I said anything. Let’s ignore it and go
elsewhere, somewhere we can get sugar on our teeth.
Let’s stick our fingers in there, but quick— don’t stop.
Let’s not stop? Let’s think about how we look in this
point of sunlight, slipping in so bright and little.
What about over there? Let’s never leave this time and mean it.
Let’s just say it’s neither here nor there. Let’s be glad
we loosened the bullet out. Let’s keep it for safekeeping.
I have a box just the right size where it may sleep our life away.
Let’s discuss this scar of yours, the one right here. Let’s admit
it’s getting us nowhere. It’s getting between us
and even the dog’s anxious looking at you. Let’s just
consider for a moment all the ways to fill in the hole.
Let’s think this out—I may have two boxes, actually.
One big enough for both of us. Let’s really think
about this a minute and consider all our options: for one,
we could shoot more holes and see what else gets through.
Something good’s got to get in eventually.

* * * *
Heather shared this poem with Mary:

Hole

Some say the hole where her eye should be is beautiful and endless.

There is no jewel for that, no single story for where it goes.

Some say the hole is a symbol, like a delicate cave or vulnerable slope leading down the body and away from the incidental circus streets. Each humid corner. Telephone booth. Loud tattoo parlor. Chemical smelling dry cleaners. Gas station under vibrating construction.

She rubs the skin that rounds the hole. Faces west. Angled so the hole is unseen by the man watching her as he idles his car at the light, appearing as though she’s pushing back sweat and hair.

In his head he makes a story about where she’s heading.

If he knew her he would suggest they discuss the unique pulls of gravity that govern all things large and unwieldy, such as love, and the conversation would sparkle. “It’s the idea of tension between two otherwise independent objects.” He’d talk authoritatively.
If she knew him, she would not be impressed.

Above them, the sun is sinking and milky light spills over the curve of her back, the profile of her breasts and the fan-like gesture of her arms.

No jewel is so valuable as to come close to that, he thinks.

The light turns green and he idles the car a minute too long. Santana playing and his fingers lightly tapping the wheel.

She turns her head toward him.

Mary created this painting/collage in response:

Click to enlarge