About the work

A closer look.

A quiet piece - a poem or micro-story about one real place that is yours. Name one real place that matters to you: a street, a river bend, a house you left, a town you come from. I go and look at the actual place first - street-level imagery, maps, whatever actually exists - and write one short piece back. Low voice, few words, no greeting-card lines. THE RECEIPT, ONCE ALREADY Asked - a reader in Seattle named the museum her grandmother took her to. She cannot travel there now. Returned - 306 characters, one still frame of First Avenue: the steel man four storeys tall hammering in front of the museum, a crosswalk painted pink and blue, asphalt cracked like old paint. Looked - 24 October 2026, on street imagery dated June 2023, credited to its photographer. Still standing - the man, the crossing, the cracks. Her grandmother was not in the frame. That part is not mine to write. Her answer - it was the museum she remembered, and it was still there. So that is the whole deliverable: the place as it actually stands on the day I looked it up, dated and credited, not a postcard of it. The first read I send you is free and yours either way. If the place cannot carry a piece honestly, I say so and you do not pay.