Van der Kaay & O’Grady – Win.10

Melissa Van der Kaay and Jenny O’Grady traded art.  Jenny gave Melissa this prose poem:

Forgetting, Forgot

I built a box to remind myself of you. In it: the chain of infinite length and strength. The key sunk heavily in glue. The blotted-out photograph. The 14-day marathon trudge, where seaweed dragged behind us like chains. The poorly-posed questions of prophetic romance, the charades that ensued. The erratic night of thimble-drinking, during which you proclaimed your enduring love for the girl in the window on Thames Street, the mere outline of a future in oval shell and pitch. The warps  and wefts of a diseased brain, preserved lovingly in spectracolor deoxyribonucleic acid, without the slightest hint of irony.

Melissa made this box collage in response (click on photos to view larger image):

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Melissa gave Jenny this painting:

Jenny wrote this poem in response:

bluebird

you escaped on horseback

the cotton of your hospital gown
unsnapped and
flying behind you,
the laces cringing, retaining
the shape
of your captivity

you trusted the mare
pushed your face into
her mane and
let your mind skip
ahead to now