ETHAN PAQUIN is the author of four books of poetry: My Thieves (Salt, U.K., 2007); The Violence (Ahsahta Press, 2005), which was
runner-up for the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos Williams Award; Accumulus (Salt, U.K., 2003); and The Makeshift (Stride,
U.K., 2002). He is founding editor of the influential online journal Slope, which has at its core a commitment to international writing;
features have included new African, Slovenian, Australian, Singapore and Brasilian poetry. In addition, he is founder and editor-in-chief of
the small press Slope Editions, whose most recent title is The Other Side of Landscape: An Anthology of Contemporary Nordic Poetry,
edited by Anni Sumari and Nicolaj Stochholm. A native of New Hampshire, Paquin lives and teaches in Buffalo, NY.

PISCES

salvage lot lakeshore
of post-tryst i try
to see your daisy
i resist employed
vigour toward poems
in this new time
women clear fences
of vine move slowly
like sinking stilts
invited to scotch parties
i prefer to smoke
and pick mallow
no magical river ever
to find forehead
mine, or flower same
staring down water
there’s not enough
clouds round earth

TARN STAR LAKE

Star Lake is no
lake
it is a tarn
called Star Lake.
It is shaped
like a star
thus it is
Star Lake
(the tarn).
It straddles
a high ridge
it looks on
all of us;
when sun
glistens rock
along its fringe
or in its shallows
the light bounces
back up up up
to the cloud
and a reflection
of you and all
you do, and us
and all we do,
duly radiates on
the cloud’s belly
and is transmitted
for all to see.
This is why
a tarn named
Star Lake means
so much to me
and why it’s
the subject here
because it matters.
It matters to deer
lost on the foggy
top. It matters
to hawks for
bearing. It matters
to god because it
made it. It matters
to earth because
the tarn remains
and earth is good
at ruining useless
things. Thus, the
tarn is useful (I
have proven that
or illustrated that
point, at least). You
like ice? Come up
to the tarn it will
feed you endless
it will I swear. I
see that I swear
upon the name
of god the first
time in my life,
this is how serious
the ice’s there.