Three Poems by Steve Klepetar

 

Happy Hour

I asked an angel at the crowded bar

if wings get tired from folding in,

if heaven serves anything stronger

than memory.

She smiled, ordered two cocktails,

adjusted her glasses,

and said the trick is not belief,

but balance—

how to hold both feather and flame

without burning your hands.  

Pretzels gleamed like little halos

on a white cocktail napkin,

and in the mirror behind the bottles

I saw my face blur into hers.

Her voice was a kind of philosophy,

a quiet hum between sips,

as if she were explaining gravity

to a child who’d just learned to walk.

Call Me Maybe

You’re by the statue of the guy on the horse—
I’m twenty yards east,
waving like a lunatic
but holding my phone because this is modern love.

“Where are you?” you say,
and I say “I’m right here!”
and you say “I can’t see you!”
though I am wearing my very red shirt,
the one you said makes me look like
a tomato in crisis.

And I say “Look left!”
and you look right,
and a pigeon flaps between us
like a sarcastic cupid.

We could walk! We could hang up!
We could meet at the fountain!
But instead we describe
each other to each other
like blindfolded poets at a zoo.

You say, “I think I see someone  who might be you
waving like an idiot.”
And I say,
“That’s definitely me.”

Then we hang up—
and in the sudden, phoneless silence,
we stare at each other
across twenty yards of perfectly available space,
as if love were a signal
we still weren't sure would reach.

My Father Said

Never trust a clock that runs too smoothly.

Time should limp, or you’ll forget it’s alive.

Rain remembers everything you whisper.

That’s why storms know your name.

If a bird lands on your shoulder, don’t move.

It’s testing your soul for balance.

Never argue with mirrors.

They already know how the story ends.

The moon is a bruise on God’s arm.

Don’t stare too long or you’ll start to ache.

The dead vote in their dreams.

That’s how we keep history honest.

Walk backward once a week.

It confuses your regrets.

If you lose your shadow,

look in the water — sometimes it swims ahead.

Love’s a house that builds itself at night.

Leave the lights on so it can find you.

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.