Medicine and Grain
She held you in her arms
when snow and wind
battered your house,
when the air filled
with stinging flies,
but you remember her
from the mountain top
where she spoke softly
of medicine and grain,
while all night you tossed
in the cold, sleeping
and waking to the music of frogs.
When I Saw the Fire
When I saw the fire, I fell through the air like ash.
I swallowed the wind.
When a door opened, I saw the room grow,
walls swell outward, windows crack and break.
In the yard, maples burned with a green flame.
I watched furniture rumble across the floor,
a cumbersome couch and seven agile chairs.
Fireplace sang to the Persian rug.
A woman sat there weaving,
still but for the fingers of her lovely hand.
I knew for certain she was my aunt,
returned from shadow to offer a charm,
or a road past the river where a small house waited
in the silence, twisting, twisting on its concrete slab.
Malady of Blood
I kissed you in the corner, when we were out of sight.
You turned to the window. Free show, you cried,
but there was no one there, only the snowy yard
and a few winter birds who couldn’t care less.
Somewhere, an army has gathered by a river
in the cold. Snow falls gently on the tanks and guns.
My mother died five years ago, and I think
how frightened she would be of the headlines
screaming across the page. She would have listened
for the sound of planes breaking the morning peace
with noise. She would have spoken to her friend
for hours on the phone, sharing the green serpent
of their fear. In the end she would have said
this is an uncozy world and offered us cookies,
which we’d refuse, because we all still hope
to die of something other than a malady of blood.
Steve Klepetar lives in the Shire (Berkshire County, in Massachusetts, that is). His work has appeared widely and has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. He is the author of fourteen poetry collections, including Family Reunion and The Li Bo Poems.
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