Painful
Light
I
turn away from the sky,
its
painful light at midday.
Far
away, the ocean swells.
Another
island disappears.
My
father watches
from
a grassy hill.
He
has been gone
a
long time,
and
now his hands
are
on fire.
Slowly,
slowly he burns.
When
he turns away,
I
see a new scar along his cheek.
And
now the clouds roll in,
the
wind begins to whistle
and
scream.
It’s
a little like a dream
I
once had,
with
a tiny man cursing
the
tractors and cars.
I
woke up holding you,
as
if we had slept for years,
carving
a little place
for
ourselves out of the igneous rock.
Beyond the Trees
It
was too late to go to bed.
Soon
the sun would be rising
above
this field of ice.
Crows
were shivering,
hopping
on their wiry legs.
All
night dogs ran in circles,
kicking
up clouds of snow.
I
slept and woke and slept again.
Now
my hands have gone numb
and
I’m ready to eat.
Let’s
spill blueberries
into
our bowls, spoon yogurt.
pour
the coffee hot and black.
Consult
your Ouija board,
deal
out the Taro deck.
Is
someone is coming down the drive?
We
may need to call someone,
though
we might be better off alone.
The Man in the Dark Blue Suit
He
waits by the stoplight,
gazing
down the street blurred by rain.
I’ve
seen him bend at the waist,
reach
down to pick a penny from the road.
He
holds it to his grey eyes,
thrusts
it in the pocket of his coat.
Again
and again he walks that route,
hands
red with cold.
Once
I followed at a distance,
watched
him lean against a storefront,
then
move on toward the harbour with his long stride.
Last
night I approached him at a bar near the ocean.
There
were clam shells on the floor,
netting
around the ceiling lights.
He
placed a penny on my tongue, told my fortune
with
a voice calm and firm as a television judge.
“To
life”, he said, patting my shoulder with a callused hand.
“To
strange and beautiful endings none of us foresaw.”
Steve Klepetar lives and writes in the Berkshires in Massachusetts.
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