Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a 
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.
 
Skin had hope, that's what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

Artwork
Two Countries 2021
5.5 x 5.5 inches
Ink and watercolor on paper
Debra Scacco @debrascaccostudio

Poem
Two Countries 1995
Words Under the Words: Selected Poems
Naomi Shihab Nye

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Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2021

Curated by members of the Durden and Ray curatorial collective

Exhibition Team
Steven Wolkoff
Alexandra Wiesenfeld
Eugene Ahn

Artists
Nicole Belle, Gary Brewer, Gul Cagin, Joe Davidson, Mariquita “Micki” Davis, Danny Angel Escalante, Nancy Evans, Rebecca Farr, Leslie Foster, Christine Frerichs, Gajin Fujita, Iva Gueorguieva, Hasef, Mike Hazel, Regina Herod, Kiel Johnson, Aline Mare, Stephanie Mercado, Sandeep Mukherjee, Hung Viet Nguyen, Elizabeth Preger, Max Presneill, Bruce Richards, Colin Roberts, Karrie Ross, Orly Ruaimi, Debra Scacco, Sonja Schenk, Greg Schenk, Coleen Sterritt, Devon Tsuno, Rodrigo Valenzuela, Marnie Weber, Lisa Wedgeworth, Liat Yossifor, HK Zamani

About Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2021