Published 29 January 20219 April 2021 · Friday Poetry / Main Posts Poetry | Canals Anders Villani and the salons remain open and your mother receives her prescription through an open car window and back doors open onto yards and low bone sky and casuals watch months open full-timers open redundancies portfolios find openings in steel and your mother lays her head in a basin of warm water in disbelief the flow doesn’t open across her face and open praise for the next face and salt opens eggplant hydrants and back doors open onto yards with corellas low bone figs and your father fills prescriptions teaches parents to open tablets to powder apple juice and your father’s mother tongue sings open balcony doors floods canals and the hair of the dead keeps growing the nails and the salons of the living keep open the living Anders Villani Anders Villani holds an MFA from the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program, where he received the Delbanco Prize for poetry. His first book, Aril Wire, was released in 2018 by Five Islands Press. He lives in Melbourne. www.andersvillani.com More by Anders Villani › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 24 November 202324 November 2023 · Friday Poetry Poem with vertical viewfinder Shari Kocher If in future an image of mine— of course, I have made the if-ness of your looking a multiple Ferris wheel turned to trolley car trundling down the street. Damn, I will show you something all right here, inside the daily or what you call private. First published in Overland Issue 228 10 November 202311 November 2023 · Subscriberthon 2023 On the final day of Subscriberthon, Overland’s most important members get to have their say Editorial Team BORIS A quick guide to another year of Overland, from your trusty feline, Boris. I liked the ginger cat story, though it made my human cry. I liked the talking cat, too, but I’m definitely in the “not wasting my time learning to talk” camp. But reading is good. And writing is fun, though it’s been challenging […]