Lord & O’Grady – Win.10

Jenny O’Grady and Jim Lord traded art. Jenny gave Jim this poem:

Driving Without Lights in the Night

You will remember the roadway.
You may have dreamt of it yourself.
It curves left beyond the hill,
passes the simple produce stand
owned by the parents of the boy from school
whose eyes blinked open,
one blue, one brown.

The weight of the cantaloupe musk
holds heavy, makes it hard to breathe,
until the countryside opens
into a sea of marshmallow flowers
and cat o’ nine tails. Night creatures
stalk killfish between the stalks.
This would have scared even you.

The speed increases, without pedal
or thought even of fast, fast, fast.
The lights flicker, then fail,
and I think briefly of the time
we spent in the attic together as kids,
a Ouija board and two stolen candles,
the answer in letters before us.

Jim painted this picture in response:

* * * *

Jim gave Jenny this drawing he did of a street in Washington, D.C.:

Jenny wrote this poem in response:

street glass

the nights are on
and i can see you from the street

your lack of
framed art, your reality
television, the kisses
you give your wife,

your pottery from Kenya,
tall vessels, proud and
expensive, your
steep shelves

filled with books from college,
the photo collages, purposefully
awry, the tea kettle
steaming

you in your la-z-boy,
taking a sip, peering
over the rim of your
glass at a stranger