Our troubles are small potatoes
Before the coffee pot
finishes percolating.
Before the sun has risen,
the world enveloped in waiting
darkness. Before we have walked
the patient dog, sitting expectant
by the door. A sign of love grown deeply,
in unseen places, like filaments
stretching under the earth.
Embrace me. Our arms together
hold the world.
Samantha Landau is an academic, classical musician, translator, and writer residing in Tokyo, Japan, where she has lived for over two decades. She works as a professor at The University of Tokyo and is a co-founder of the Gothic in Asia Association. Her poems have recently appeared in Tiny Spoon Lit Mag, Judith Magazine, Dust Poetry Magazine, and Calul Journal, among others.