Wish You Were Where?: The Postcard Project, sponsored by the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program, encourages poets of all ages and abilities to send one of their poems (along with a stamp and return address) to an artist of their choice (as many as they’d like as long as each written piece is different) who will respond to the work by providing an illustration as the front of the postcard.

Poem by Jessica Purdy:

What I Want Today
    (for Andrew)

I want to be the word no one but the maker has read--
what is written on the electrical box, the screw head,
the metal under the sidewalk.
I want a greenish-copper patina on my cracking skin.

I want to be the apple still clinging to the tree
no one has picked me yet
filled as I am with bitterness, sweet promise,
and so securely fastened.

I want to be the day that hides the sun
You would know it's me if I were the day.



...and my response: