Jeanne-Claude

—after Preparatory drawing for Corridor Store Front by Christo and Jeanne-Claude

(Curling, curling) (had the floor always curled like that?)
(—she thought not, but) (it was hard to say) (it had been made
in the sixties) (and perhaps) (the paper had curled in the years
since) (—just as well, since the gallery floor had curled too)
(it had never been smooth) (but then neither had she) (the colour
of a curl by her temple) (was only one of the ways that she knew
to measure) (herself) (her body, she thought) (was full of floors)
(within floors) (rooms within rooms) (just like the installation
was a storefront) (inside a storefront) (the drawing had been made
because they wanted to understand) (how a gallery space might
terminate) (with a room) (that one couldn’t enter) (just like her
rooms) (they had drapes made of muslin behind plate glass)
(framed in steel channel) (steel, like she was made) (of) (people
stood in front of her, too) (in front of) (her rooms) (asking to be
let in) (her drapes were backlit) (effervescent) (they glowed)
(and sometimes she wished they didn’t) (wished they were more
like in the drawing) (where they were studying the space)
(and folded paper for scale) (the paper) (mute, diminishing)
(foreshortened by perspective) (converging on the back wall of
the gallery) (the drawn floor curling to meet it) (sometimes
she wanted to meet it)

(she met it)

SHOU JIE ENG

Shou Jie Eng is an architectural designer and writer. Originally from Singapore, he runs Left Field Projects, a studio practice located in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a finalist for the inaugural Kenyon Review Poetry Contest in 2024, and teaches courses in drawing at the Rhode Island School of Design.