An artist I meet at the mahogany table helps abandoned buildings breathe with light. Industrialia. Camera suspicion. I show him a glove made of marigolds, a 24-foot statue of my old neighbor, leather-clad with fringed sleeves in that 70s style. (Roadside America removed his glasses, et voilà—Daniel Boone.) Also, the broken Loblaws where I learned to bike. Even now I feel it was all my fault: cracks in the sidewalk, rocks in my hand, hazmat suits, for sale signs, a city ordinance waving in the breeze. Another artist calls this ruin porn. But I’m from here, I insist. I have a cape. Then wear it when you write.
Site 7: Photo Stream
Laurie Filipelli is the author of two books of poems—Elseplace (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2013) and the 2019 Writers’ League of Texas Discovery Prize winner, Girl Paper Stone (Black Lawrence Press, 2018)—as well as Mighty Writing’s College Application Essay Guide (Mighty Writing, 2017). She lives in Austin where she coaches, edits and blogs as Mighty Writing.