Patterns in the Dust by Steve Klepetar

“Here in my head, language

keeps making its tiny noises.”

Mary Oliver

Sometimes, I think

I have two brains,

one wrapped in fog

and the other

peeking out

through small holes

at a world filled

with colorful birds,

finding patterns

in the dust,

remembering

when I was small.

Both have voices,

and sometimes

they talk at once,

over my hunger

and fear

of the strange light

as winter withdraws.

“Hush,” I tell them,

but how they weep

to speak.

I find it best

to sing them to sleep,

and all the pretty little horses.

Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Klepetar is the author of fourteen poetry collections, the most recent of which are A Landscape in Hell (Flutter Press) and Why Glass Shatters (One Sentence Chaps).