Here is what she really asked the limping
man, the one whose sockets would be hollow and blind:

“You find yourself submerged in the well
of accursedness, that stone-frozen stop

on the road to Armageddon.  Which cup
will you drink and which sweet vintage

pour out onto snow crusted ground?
What sacred voice sent me to find you here,

with my tired arms full of lambs?
When you rise bloodless from the bedroom

floor, where you crouched until the final
star blinked out, whose flower will you hold?

What angel blooms from your startled fingers?
Whose rage have you tasted in this waste of night?”

[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.]