Etched in Glass by Steve Klepetar

Here, the road where you rested, sitting on your pack,
waiting for breath to return, waiting in the shade
on a hot afternoon, watching broken sky
between the pines.
And there, the lake where you listened
to bullfrogs before morning mist burned away.
So many pictures etched in glass.
Watermelon, which you never liked,
sliced on a paper plate, with its rind like jade,
its faint flavor cold on your teeth.
Three lean boys in the bed of a pickup,
shovels and picks, crewcuts, axes and saws.
Blisters and dust, lukewarm water from canteens.
Summer has come again with its promise
of rain and grass. All night barn owls hooted
and soared along the pond.
Here, the car you couldn’t drive, its broken wheel.
There the house in the woods where the old man lived alone.
Once at the range, you lay on your belly, rifle in hand.
“Squeeze the trigger,” someone said.
In the stillness that followed, you tore the target to shreds.



Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has appeared in nine countries, in such journals as Boston Literary Magazine, Deep Water, Antiphon, Red River Review, Snakeskin, Ygdrasil, and many others. Several of his poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His fourteen collections include My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto, The Li Bo Poems, and Why Glass Shatters.