April 2015
I'm an old dog, a recently retired college professor who was born in Shanghai, China in 1949. My parents were holocaust survivors and
refugees. I grew up in New York City and spent my teaching career in the Midwest - Wisconsin, and for the past 33 years, Minnesota. I've been fortunate to have received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, including three in 2014. My recent collections include My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto (Flutter Press) and Return of the Bride of Frankenstein (Kind of a Hurricane Press).
refugees. I grew up in New York City and spent my teaching career in the Midwest - Wisconsin, and for the past 33 years, Minnesota. I've been fortunate to have received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, including three in 2014. My recent collections include My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto (Flutter Press) and Return of the Bride of Frankenstein (Kind of a Hurricane Press).
At the Window
Suddenly sunshine after nine days
of cloud and fog. She squints
in December cold, drifts to her boot
tops, cheeks raw red in gelid air.
She sees him at the window, head
bent to the page, light in the glass
a halo around his black, unruly hair.
His translucent skin shines in its pallor
and she imagines him floating above
the sea, just off the wild coast beyond
rocks and red buoy rocking in winter
wind. His breath forms clouds, which
morph into many shapes: tall ships
and lanterns, barrels perched on platforms
waiting for gnarled and calloused hands.
The Woman Whose Mind Became a Hill
in summer
steep
path through woods
until she bursts
into a clearing at the top
sunlight on meadow
blooms: cornflower and wild thyme
purple against grass
and white yarrow
spiky, pink knapweed
clustered around ankles
to her calves
her mind
has become a highway
of mist
lithe green snake
on the overgrown trail
woodpeckers thrumming
on oaks beyond
her field
of vision, blue slice
of sky
lost
between densely woven
trees, the lake’s
mud
smell by reed beds, algae
thick on lapping water by the vanishing shore
Walking By Moonlight
“30th. Walked I know not where.
31st. Walked.
1st April. Walked by Moonlight.”
-Dorothy Wordsworth, The Alfoxden Journal
I walked by moonlight, which sparkled
on falling snow. I wore my dream eyes
and my sister trailed behind in the form
of a white hare, amber eyes glowing
in the dark. I knelt and watched her breath
hang in the air. She hopped up into my arms.
“Where are we?” I asked, but she twitched
her nose and sighed. Near a lake, trees opened
into an oval stretch of glass, cold and milky
in the silent air. Then a cry from somewhere
near, sharp, inhuman, an incandescent noise,
rustle of branches and then the rush of wind.
How beautiful she looked, her soft, white fur
and pink eyes, tall ears poised, lithe body
tensed for flight. She led me out onto the lake
and we skittered through snow. We felt the ice
beneath our feet, air bubbles frozen into tiny
welts. Then the ice opened, but silently,
to receive our bodies: hands, and breath and eyes.
©2015 Steve Klepetar