Geometry

We want to think
that Hell also obeys
geometry,
punishment proportional to
distortion of boundaries,
sin contained like
notes off-key
within the larger harmonies.

A pleasant abstraction
this Hell, with
furies naughty but nice,
pleasant intellectual meanderings
armchair bound,
Dante, domesticated, with
lights on, doors shut, blinds closed.

Yet we shiver.
We feel dark things
that coil and lash and dart
beneath the tenuous configuration
of social dance,
we sense
snake eyes, luminous,
peeping through keyholes,
waiting.

A native of Pittsburgh, PA, Janet Butler is a TOEFL Instructor, translator, and watercolor painter currently living in Italy. She collaborated with Dr. Romeo Giuli in the translation of his poetry from 1997 to 2003 and a selection of these poems have been published by Solveig Publishing, Siena, Italy. After this collaboration, she decided to dedicate herself to her own creative writing. Her poetry has been published in several VoicesNet Anthologies, Scrivener’s Pen, FrontStreet Review, Ken*again, which also published four of her watercolors, Pedestal Magazine: The Political Anthology, Tilt (UK), Underground Window, ForPoetry, and Subtle Tea, among others.