Gabrielle Civil is a Black feminist performance artist, poet, and writer, originally from Detroit, MI. She has premiered over fifty original performances, most recently Jupiter at Velocity Dance Center (2021) and Vigil at Northern Spark (2021). Her performance memoirs include Swallow the Fish (2017), Experiments in Joy (2019), and the déjà vu (2022). Her writing has also appeared in Kitchen Table Translation, New Daughters of Africa, and Experiments in Joy: a Workbook. A 2019 Rema Hort Mann LA Emerging Artist, she teaches at the California Institute of the Arts. The aim of her work is to open up space.

POETRY

from ( g h o s t g e s t u r e s )

By GABRIELLE CIVIL

The doll was small, about a foot long, with a cloth body and a 1920s-style, plastic Kewpie face. She was pitch-black like the new moon.