Seth Jani
This is the heat of the gold butterfly.
A sluggish honey the day drops
from summer’s rafters,
leaving no shadows
in the streets.
Everyone drinks beer
and thinks slowly about love.
About what they’re entangled in.
All those dark conspiracies
of need, and want, and loss.
Even the wind is looking for a kiss
between the treetops and phone lines,
a little dry leaf
it can cradle
over the flesh of continents.
I think of a friend
whose bright hair
leads me into ancient caverns,
drives me down
into subterranean waters
beneath the waking mind.
Love is mostly unspoken
and serves that underworld sea
which ages of exploration
have left mapless and unknown.
Here in August
under the heavy sunlight
all our heads are bowed
toward some dark other.
Seth Jani is a poet, publisher and bartender in Seattle, WA. His work has appeared in The American Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Ghost City Review, Rust+Moth and Phantom Drift, among others. His most recent full-length collection, Field Music, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2023. Visit him at www.sethjani.com.