“And Cohen himself was as still as a stone,
as he watched the woman he loved paw
at the earth like a white wolf or a witch.”
Alice Hoffman, Drowning Season
And trees grew around her like shadows
moving on a gray wall, as raw sound ripped
from her throat. Tonight she was wind
and green stones on the ragged beach
where gulls shrieked and dove. She was
drowning in salt air, her fingers turning
to sand. In the darkness she owned nothing
and her eyes burned with emptiness. Her wild
white hair tangled on her shoulders, and she
tore at the earth and bled. Emptiness
and grief and a voice charged with lightning
and flame, lovers igniting at her touch,
smoke pouring into the night sky, seared
and branded with stars and wisps of cloud.
Steve Klepetar lives in Saint Cloud, Minnesota, but is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Notre Dame, Australia in Fremantle. His work has appeared widely, and has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize, including for in 2016. Recent collections include A Landscape in Hell (Flutter Press) and How Fascism Comes to America (Locofo Chaps).
DELICIOUS! Thank you.
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