Before the third millennium,
we watch a film set in Madrid
that does a slow spin to the Arctic Circle –
never imagined visiting that faraway place.
The flight path takes us to Heathrow,
on to Helsinki, two days later a prop jet
to Rovaniemi. From the sky, the footprint
of the city is the shape of a reindeer’s head,
streets the antlers, sports stadium the eye,
a design of Alvar Aalto after the war
for this bombed-out town. Our lives
shift to blackout shades, saunas, hiking
the highest mountain in Lapland.
On a wooded path, we pass a spillway
* poem, in its entirety, is available in the printed version of the current issue.
Bio:
Marc Swan’s latest collection, all it would take, was published in May 2020 by tall-lighthouse (UK). Poems are forthcoming in Gargoyle, Nerve Cowboy, StepAway Magazine, Chiron Review, and Crannóg, among other publications. He lives in coastal Maine with his wife Dd, a maker and yoga teacher.