Sam’s Band (Bluegrass Version)
The coffee table shrouds itself
in pampas grass, trading cards, racing forms.
Rain scatters the week’s early warmth.
I wear my friends’ desk like the shell
of a hermit crab. The water boils.
Wistful music plays, and no one speaks.
The wax candles that C. set out
hold out their gentle hopes for spring
and I feel your absence. I want to hold
this melancholy tight, let it come unwound
and burrow like stubborn dormice in my chest.
Endul Rothandus
By the grace of the pillars and branches
I am blessed with a roof, and by grace
of the trickster I may speak
in the tongue of my peers.
By the grace of three harrowing sides
I am blessed with a cause.
I speak, and I listen –
of my task, I make no secret.
Make a formula for all that you see:
this algae-glow blue – these rags –
these lenient footfalls,
all inscribed with a face
of alabaster, a sigil of love,
a lattice of heather,
a mind filled with other worlds’ dust.
Ethan Vilu (she/her) is a poet and editor from Calgary. Her longsheet A Decision Re: Zurich was published by The Blasted Tree in 2020, and her chapbook Drawings From Before The Red Year is currently out with Anstruther Press. Ethan serves as managing editor at filling Station Magazine. She dreams of visiting New York City, Marseille, and Hong Kong, probably in that order.