The woman I met on the road to Thebes
laughed like coins jangling in a red purse.

Her hair was wet and smooth and full of light.
I asked her name and she said “Moonlight

on the black lake,” she said “Swallows spinning
in August trees.”  “Dust,” she said, “ochre

dust from sweet wood sawed by a patient hand.”
With her sharp nails, she carved her names

on my naked thigh. I held her hands in mine
and breathed the scent of her golden skin.

She looked away down the long tunnel of time.
Her mirrors shone in the sun, sending sparkles

out into summer air. Her face grew dim and I
felt the gravity of her lovely neck. She held

my lips in her palm like an offering of seed.
She buried my eyes as they burned, planted

my legs by her sacred stand of pines. Through
earth I grew, under bones piled beneath her feet.

[Steve Klepetar’s work has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Flutter Press has recently published two chapbooks: My Father Teaches Me a Magic Word and My Father Had Another Eye.]