Dance

Like everyone,
haunted by the past,
I hear the slipshod music
of a distant summer
loosening its bloodred grip,
easing-up, not on the heart,
but on the memory of itself,
until I’m left with the blur
of vanished faces
and the glittering, indistinct desires
prowling the fabled hall.

*

Hunger

Even with time passing through
the jeweled carcass of summer
I still find myself
climbing the dim hillside
to take the moon into my hands,
that dark bread, which all my life,
has fed my longing,
has made my hunger shine.

*

Seth Jani lives in Seattle, WA and is the founder of Seven CirclePress (www.sevencirclepress.com). Their work has appeared in The American Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Ghost City Review, Rust+Moth and Pretty Owl Poetry, among others. Their full-length collection, Night Fable, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2018. Visit them at http://www.sethjani.com.