Saini & Holman – August 2025

J. Spence Holman and Mohit Saini traded art and words. Spence shared this untitled self portrait with Mohit:

In response, Mohit wrote this poem:

Cartography of Unspoken Rain

The map is not of roads,
but of pauses—
inked in the spaces
where conversations drowned.

Between two lampposts,
a drop of rain decides to wait,
midair,
as if measuring the weight of falling.

A window glows
without opening;
inside, someone folds a paper boat
and never sails it.

I walk along your absence,
counting the turns my mind takes
to avoid saying your name.
Somewhere,
water gathers in the hollow of a stone—
its ripple pattern
looks exactly like the sound
I never made.

* * * * *

Mohit shared this poem with Spence:

The Time Thief’s Retirement Plan

I’ve saved up years in pickle jars,
stored under floorboards—Venetian hours
next to Parisian minutes, their labels
peeling like sunburnt skin.

The good ones (birthday cake delays,
slow train rides through lavender fields)
I trade for sapphire afternoons
when the light slants just so.

But the hurried years—airport Tuesdays,
dentist waiting rooms—I let ferment
into vinegar. Useful for erasing
certain doorbells, certain names.

Today I found a jar I’d forgotten:
1967, the summer of fireflies
and unsent letters. Its glass
breathes like a living thing.

The label reads in my mother’s hand:
“Spend immediately.
No interest accrues
on unwitnessed joy.”

In response, Spence made this artwork, titled “Spend Immediately”: