A Poem by Steve Klepetar

Burning Nails

             “Now I wish I could write you a melody so plain

That could hold you, dear lady, from going insane”

                                                          Bob Dylan

Two in the bush, that disaster of fluttering

wings, those small hearts heaped on a plate

those dead notes loose in windless trees

the ocean’s other mouth. She watches

through white capped waves, for sailors

their green hair pulled back rough in a scaly

undertow of driftwood and claws.

We are the orifice of fire and smoke and song

rhythm of waves and lust in the blood. We kiss

and we eat. We are owls. Our moaning

batters your ears, we have pushed past barriers

of melody’s golden weave, we are throats and tongues

deadly magic licking flames, timbers and burning nails.

Steve Klepetar teaches literature and creative writing at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota. His work has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Flutter Press has recently published his latest chapbook "My Father Teaches Me a Magic Word"