Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She performs tales of food, family, strong women. Internationally published as an essayist, poet, short story writer, and novelist,  she’s a 2021 and 2022 Pushcart nominee, Best of the Net 2022 nominee, and  2022 runner-up in Robert Frost Competition. Her essays, poems, and fiction appear in Impspired, Ekphrastic Review, Verse Visual, Verse Virtual, anti-heroin chic, Gargoyle, Active Muse, Silver Birch, Yellow Mama, Mystery Tribune, Ovunquesiamo, MacQueen’s Quinterly and others.  Her poetry chapbooks are Languid Lusciousness with Lemon and  Feathers on Stone.

For Whom I Weep

Black clouds explode,
drenching north rim’s edge.

A snap of light whips
down from a colossal cloud 

stinging the rocks
again, again, and again.

I drive away,
outracing lightning. 

rocks cannot run. 
I weep for the rocks.

Blueberry Season

Blossoms gone,
I search low bushes for 
dark bright berries

at my light touch
berries tumble from the bush
into my hand and pail

and into my mouth,
savoring sweet berries until 
my tongue turns blue.

Beeswax

The scratch of a match
brings flame to wick.
Wax drips down,
scalding my fingers
as I search for
just the right spot
to place my candle.

As I step back from  
the array of flickering
offerings, 
I thank the bees
for their gift of wax,
to make a candle
whose sweet aroma will
carry prayers into heaven.