I am the womb
and the grave.

Don’t search
for me, my hair

is on fire. I
have never been

carved in stone.
Once my ears

were broken
but now they

are healed.
I have held

the god’s tendons
in my half

bestial hands.
I eat mice

but even so
I am no one’s pet.

Arrows pierce
me over and over,

yet it is the Golden
One who shrivels

and dies. I invade
your dreams, you

know my shade.
We shall meet again

as we met before:
tangled in a wet embrace.

[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.]