Jaya Avendel

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Summer Storm

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Bamboo screen thin, the streets of Venice
Shine through the wasting water.

Stagnant love and harmony of goddess
Distill between cracked fingertips

Imported rose water burns flesh
Silk parasol smokes in hazy sun.

Alongside worn tundra palette and the
Madonna’s stone jug
The muse of Italy
Speaks by rubbing together grape vine branches
Sound of smoky summer wine.

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Villa of the Papyri

It unfolds before me
Rough beneath my feet
Curling outward; the ever-breaking wave
Plunges into the bone yard.

Here I find torn page and broken quill
The birch branch weeping perfume
Hera, with elephant bone feet.

Rib-less spines spiral in the dust
The poet whispers with dead lips from stone
Slowly, his teeth grind the enamel off meaning and
Bare knowledge to the cavity of time.

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BIO: Jaya Avendel is a word witch from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, passionate about life where it intersects with writing and the dreamscapes lost in between. Her writing is published at Rebelle Society, Free Verse Revolution, and Green Ink Poetry, among other magazines, and in print anthologies detailing everything from climate change to women’s empowerment.

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