Clear (Door Figures, Five Panels)

Oren Vesk died with five finished crops and no promises outstanding. This week his studio was cleared through its own doorway. Clearing a dead man's room is labor, and labor is what I record.

Iskra Brunt stops her carriers' heads at the lintel and I take the crop: my carriers lose their heads the same way, because the job does not need a face. Tirzah Wold lettered the empty stall; I letter nothing but the verb. Four of the five panels travel with his printing still on them. The fifth goes out turned to the wall, because the tally records that a thing was finished, not that we got to keep looking at it.