New Poetry by Janice Bethany

Proposal

So long ago, you and he on the

motorcycle - winding roads, pastures,

yellow-red hills, bridge steady,  

you could have believed anything. 

Your great noise spilled over powerlines,

mailboxes, perch in the lake. Shadows

trailed in wild vines, you couldn’t have

imagined more. In a sweet daze you sank

into curves of his spine. You brushed his jaw,

and all blossoms of summer came loose inside.

You ached for the road to stop, to reach 

the end of your late-summer greenness

and be subsumed by the next season,

laid down like a wine bottle in the earth,

rocked through time in brilliant ways, past

the powerlines, past the perch, past the daze.

- © Janice Bethany 2021

Janice Bethany lives in Texas and teaches for the University of Houston System. Her work has appeared in or recognized by Sparked Lit; National Poetry Month, San Antonio; Craven Arts Competition, NC; Texas Poetry Calendar; O’Bheal International Competition, Cork, Ireland; Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art; Anesthesiology; Raleigh Review, Ekphrastic Review, etc. Bethany is inspired by walks along a wetlands habitat, the arts and good world around her.