| Poetry, Visual Art

Of Farther and Dwell

Sneha Subramanian Kanta

Every journey is a prayer. A pelagic tradition
for the traveler. The wing-field inside a cloud.

Ghosts paddle in sphagnum. Fire between sun
and hill. Grasslands in the afterglow of dawn.

A tear in the cirrocumulus, or the first embrace
before rain. You dwell to embrace the plurality

in color, quilt baggage to string hydraulic with
oratorio. Every migration is a neon hymnal.

Hibiscus trails like the path of a glacier. Over
mountain slopes, through patches of holme,

residuum of twill and thatched roofs. Where
the light follows after scattering. You crayon

homes. Hear the thrum of winds. Redbuds
are a likeness against violence. Ghosts run

into a valley of thistles. Name the unfamiliar
ruin a prior victual. Peregrine call from afar,

a praise for velocity. The train headlights cut
through folding mist but mist forms again.

Fullness and rigor inside the mouth of a ghost.
You witness landscape with a kerosene lamp,

wool blanket, and gravel. Mauve reflections fall
over house-fences. A snowstorm is lack of heat.

Every executioner practices vivisection. After
the howl, a sacrament of wolves. The trees form

a reshaping route. After the departure—wind,
elm, metal, siren, and ghost. A plantation. Root.

Sneha Subramanian Kanta

is a writer from the Greater Toronto Area, Canada. She is the recipient of the inaugural Vijay Nambisan Fellowship (2019). She was the Charles Wallace Fellow writer-in-residence (2018–19) at The University of Stirling. Her work has appeared in The Normal School, Waxwing Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, Quiddity, and elsewhere. She is the author of Ghost Tracks (Louisiana Literature Press) and the founding editor of Parentheses Journal.

ART: Blue Pen Drawing 8 by Jean Wolff

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