Submissions by janiselizabeth (Janis Miller)

His mouth erased the syllables from mine
until it was only his name I could remember;
too dumb to speak, I used my hands.

He pinned his butterfly to the wall
 
and framed her face with his hands;
 
his elusive Bhutan Glory.
 
It was her eyes that caught his desires first
 
emerging from the shadows and crimson fire
 
two great moons, rising to overtake the sky;
 
his grand paragon of beauty.
 
His lips eclipsed hers
 
dipped in an inferno of unquenchable thirst.
 
Wings in lace fluttered around his waist
 
and wrapped him in a chrysalis of lust
 
giving shelter to the loneliness ...

I confessed my secrets to the moon.

I spoke them softly as pages turn

in a book, their words overlapping on top

of one another, the way two lovers

whisper in each others ears. Lips tickling

with a trail of shivers left behind hot breath

on pale milky skin bathed in the moon's glow.

Leaves rustle excitedly as they listen

to the susurrus of the wind passing.

Crickets rub their lace wings together

in syncopation with the cicada’s tymbal.

Shutter bugs burst in...

There's a garden in the back, but it hasn't been planted yet.
Through the southern window you can see its nakedness,
bare to the sky, unashamed--
rich black earth, the color of mediterranean olives.
 
-- it feeds our family every year,
 my children with joy; their laughter echos behind
their footsteps as they chase each other through the wisteria.
 
-- my husband his passion as he tends to the land,
and makes fertile its soil and carves out its shape
with his hands. Sometimes I get jealous,
                              ...