219th Weekly Poetry Contest winner: Shadows

by Miles T. Ranter

An electric candle on the hardwood floor
illuminates the ceiling in a room
where on a bed, beneath the quilted covers,
they giggle at the silhouettes their fingers
produce: a goose, a dog. Each phantom hovers:
a sunless kite under a stormy sky
where thunderclaps will roar and rain will pour
laughter upon their tender souls. Like stingers,
the humor pokes at ticklish spots in the womb
of imagination leading by and by
to petting and inhaling flesh and hair,
falling and floating in the abyss of feeling,
the candle lighting up the bedroom ceiling,
desire burning like a flame in air.

See all the entrants to 219th Weekly Poetry Contest