“Manu’s sphere” by Elana Wolff
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Manu’s sphere” by Elana Wolff.
Manu’s sphere
By Elana Wolff
may seem like a game of shades—
conjuring in the corridors, runes
on hidden lintels, demi-creatures
staging stunts, reminding us
we dwell in many nebulous
worlds at once. Sirens
sounding human voices—
lower than infrared, higher
than visible violet.
The city hoods its head
whenever the trouble comes,
it comes. The sea continues seeing, the rivers
run, the skies arise. The Queen
of the Night is back to life—her blooms
a resurrection, Manu’s eye-light preternaturally pale.
Bluish-white, he says, is a natural colour.
People may be right in saying it’s strange,
we hold no hate. It flies
like a stick from our fingers, we draw and write.
Therein dwell the secrets—open as puzzles,
jugs and throats. The notion
that agapē is chaste
may be incorrect. Nevertheless, I love it.
And don’t even think of speaking badly of Manu.
Copyright © Elana Wolff
Forthcoming in EVERYBODY KNOWS A GHOST (Guernica Editions, 2026)
Elana Wolff writes from the ancestral land of the Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat First Nations in Ontario. Her poems have recently appeared in The Antigonish Review, Asemana Review, Best Canadian Poetry 2024, Blood+Honey, The Nelligan Review, Rat’s Ass Review, The/tEmz/Review, and Woman Life Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution. Her cross-genre Kafka-quest work, Faithfully Seeking Franz, received the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the category of Jewish Thought and Culture. Her poetry collection, Everybody Knows a Ghost, is forthcoming with Guernica Editions.
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