How your footsteps echoed in the empty halls
how you filled your plate with vines
how blue jays shrieked away the afternoon
how I followed you like smoke
and became mist on the surface of a lake
how your mother’s haunted eyes turned black
and her lips and mouth were filled with worms
how you sat with her until darkness came
and your words parted the muddy pool
how you stroked her cheek until she disappeared
how you sang and rode the dangerous waves
how your breath melted snow and ice
how you whispered me back from the precipice
and showed me how to ride the air
how you taught me to cross hands over my heart
and fly inside myself
how easily I got lost in my own burning map
my hair tangled in your branches leaving me
dangling above the grass, round and vulnerable as fruit.

© 2014 Steve Klepetar

Image “red dawn” © Flickr user Steve Wall

Steve Klepetar was born in Shanghai, China. His work has been published in Red River Review (which nominated him for the Pushcart Prize in 2013) , Black Heart Magazine (which nominated him for Best of the Net in 2013) and Glass, among many others.