Bad Housekeeping by Emma Neale

The cat does a
fine patriarchal stalk

his paws all
rosebuds and thorns,

eyes a
tender-censorious almost-blue

as he plays
pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake

with the living
room rug

which bubbles
and bumps

like bread
dough baking

until I lift
its edge

to see a small,
dark, anguished mouse

race the thread
of its tail up and down

like a
seamstress frantic to say least and mend soonest

the deep

Prompt: All About June

What does the month of June suggest to you? Summer? Weddings?

In Richard Wilbur's poem, "June Light," the month is present in someone "with clear location" and "the just soft stare of uncontested summer."

The Latin name for June is Junius. Ovid offered multiple etymologies for the month's name: from the Roman goddess Juno, the goddess of marriage and the wife of the supreme deity Jupiter; the second is that the name comes from the Latin word iuniores, meaning "younger ones", as opposed to maiores ("elders") for which the preceding month May (Maius) may be named. Though we might associate JUne with weddings, in ancient Rome, the period from mid-May through mid-June was considered a bad time to marry. Ovid says that he consulted the Flaminica Dialis, the high priestess of Jupiter, about setting a date for his daughter's wedding, and was advised to wait till after June 15. Then again, Plutarch said that the entire month of June was more favorable for weddings than May.

I like the Icelandic folk story that says that if you bathe naked in the morning dew on the morning of June 24, you are supposed to keep aging at bay for a longer period.

If you believe in the power of the heavenly bodies, the start of June finds the sun rising in the constellation of Taurus, and at the end of the month it rises in the constellation of Gemini.

Does the month mean to you, as in this month's full moon, strawberries and roses?

This month we ask you to consider June as the theme for your poem. Perhaps, you can teach us something new about the month.

Submission deadline: June 30, 2014

Quail Flat, 1960 by Kerry Popplewell

for Brian

Five of us slept that night on the stone floor
of an old cob hut, close by the Clarence River �
our ears ringing still from the silence
of high screes, our eyes still burning
from hot snow, the bright shimmer of bugloss
and briar rose on the parched valley flats.

When I woke, cold, in that monochrome time
before colour seeps in, I saw you sprawled
quite motionless, eyes closed.

Daphne Gloag: Oranges and walnuts (still life by Luis Mel�ndez)