Dimensions: Approximately 43” Diameter Each
Medium: Gold Plated Human Teeth (inside), Silk, Wax Print Cotton, Poly Fiber Fill, Wool, Poem, Sound
The genesis of Mimic is a set of gold-plated human teeth given to me by a family member right before she passed. They were her husband’s – who had died over a decade before. She’d kept them on her person since.
These ‘twin’ pieces and the accompanying recited poem are meant to be suspended and swinging around each other with the sound piece playing out loud. It speaks of the ache we feel for someone we have built our lives around; and the subsequent rumination we are left with after their loss.
Mimic Swing (2016)
When I first heard her voice
She was broken
A part of her
had cracked through her ribs
and floated away
What could I say
I had lost too
Many many times.
Parts of me
Swing
Just a half second out of sync
With the rest of me
What can I say
My tongue has turned to ash
Trapping three thousand lifetimes
In my throat
I swallow hard and ask
Why she kept his teeth
But I know
A tactile reminder
Of the phantom restlessness
Pulsing just under lungs
Maybe one day
My truth will reveal itself to me
And I can see both sides of the mirror
Untangle my voice
Match it to my face
Sew it all up
And crawl into it
And we can live
She and I
Mute in our
Abstract, unrecognizable lonelinesses
Sewn into flesh
We could scream ourselves hoarse
And even that, would be contained
Absorbed
And we could never lose
Another piece of us
Ever again.