by Tanya Pilumeli

The hollow spaces fill
as the storm hovers, catching
the sun’s rays inside a cloudy belly,
distant rumbles and sparks–
an old man’s rambling grunts.
Then sliming the sky, the color of old nickels,
the sun’s feeble rays are trapped and kept
underneath, plundered.
On the water is a slow granny green rolling, waving, ripening,
tips of waves licking that heaven
away like liquid diamond from coal.
Now, the real quenching,
the storm hovering still and black,
shivering like a cow’s udder,
and the lake, a blade of new grass as smooth
as a bride maid’s skirt,
before the dancing wind comes,
black teeth on
alabaster.

Tanya Pilumeli has poetry in The Ekphrastic Review, Tipton Review, Wild Violet, The Blue Collar Review, Blaze Vox and other places. She was a winner of a Lakeland Poetry prize, NSFPS Awards, Hessler Street Fair Poetry Contest, Blue Collar Review, was nominated for a 2019 Pushcart for her essay in Café Abyss and was first-place winner for Time of Singing. She lives outside of Cleveland, Ohio, but loves travelling and has been to many amazing places including Patagonia, Colombia, Namibia and Egypt. teaches English at Lakeland Community College and owns an Italian restaurant on Lake Erie, Alessandro’s, with her husband. She has three teens, Giuseppe, Violetta and Dionisio