This garden of ivy and grime, I suppose,
is as good a place as any. I’ll confess – I feel strange,
my body a rusted window covered in silt.
It’s the truth when I say I’ll never die. So too my peers,
my interlocutors, my reference points, my friends.
Stained-glass skulls, refrains I can never answer.
Silence and time: I used to consider these gifts, and yet
I’ve paced through eons searching for lost comrades
who’d never have thought that I would deign to look.
I earnestly swear on my tarnished impossible grave
that should I find them, I’ll exist in the here and now
as a perfect orchard. A healthy vein. An open book.
Ethan Vilu is a student, poet, and editor from Calgary, Canada. Their poetry longsheet A Decision re: Zurich was published by The Blasted Tree in 2020. Ethan currently serves as both poetry editor and circulation manager for filling Station Magazine.