Trace of Grey

“Life just puts you in a corner that way.”
— August: Osage County

Composed of lithographs, stretched canvases, and a selection of recent poems, this collection draws its themes from objects—neither purely ekphrastic, nor bound by political correctness, nor obedient to the optimism so often demanded.

My previous collection, Room 913, was published in 2016. After a decade, I felt compelled to revisit and assemble the writings of these intervening years. The writer, carrying a handful of open-ended threads, wanders into noisy cafés and old-fashioned meeting spots where each person becomes a masterless dog, dancing in the black pupil of the world’s eye. Each object begins in neutrality. But slowly, it coils and shifts, assumes form and color, stirs meaning, awakens feeling, even provokes conflict.

A Trace of Grey is a perfectionist’s middle way—a quiet obsession with balance. It asks what it means to stand in between. Stepping out from the room, a thin cloud veils the view. Neither boy nor girl, unable to pursue, one simply waits for that time when sunlight stream in.