Surreality 

by Nancy K. Jentsch

 
A butterfly day hovers, first gauzy 
as ghost clouds passing in front 
of stars, then slips, breathless 
from its chrysalis. It billows— 
a ballroom dress of windblown scarlet 
leaves whose clatter is the dance’s 
snare-drum beat and whose scent 
at once feathers and grounds. 
 
A fire day is a white dress day’s 
opposite. Smeared with soot, 
it reeks of ash—a day to flee 
starward onto enchantment’s kite, 
strings pulled taut by wood nymphs,  
angle wings, fritillaries. 


* * * * *

"Surrealiy" was inspired by the art of Christian Schloe.

Nancy K. Jentsch’s chapbook Authorized Visitors and the collaborative ekphrastic chapbook Frame and Mount the Sky, in which her poetry appears, were published in 2017. Her collection Between the Rows debuted in 2022. Since she began to write in 2008, her work has appeared in journals such as Amethyst Review, Crowstep Poetry Journal, Tiferet Journal, and Zingara Poetry Review. In 2020, she received an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Retired after 37 years of teaching, she finds a bounty of inspiration in her family and her rural home. More information is available on her website: https://jentsch8.wixsite.com/my-site.