Steve Klepetar

New Year

At the end of the year, as the brothers part
company, one turns, his shadow to the wall,
the other smiles and leaps out into the cold,
green sea, as many winds and waves conceal
his body, which winds through watery miles,

and now both feel cut in two, incomplete
despite their rough handshakes and tumbling hair,

so the shadow man becomes a mouth and a tongue
wailing across roof beams as evening emerges,
tripping into night, while far away his brother hears
only the song of absence as it floats away above
oak and pine, burning a face into memory and dust.

Steve Klepetar is hoping to move to the Shire one of these days.