Missing You
 
I wonder about a green snake in a pattern of forest leaves,
but I can’t tell if it’s real, or maybe a necklace with tiny
rubies for eyes. See how it dangles from a woman’s neck,
or from a tree branch, flicking its tongue out into the air.
How long you’ve been gone, and since you left, the air
has gotten colder, so cold the green snake has disappeared
back into the world of forms. I tried to pay attention
to its scales, the way it undulated like a figure in a dream.
Now it’s snowing again.
Pines catch flakes in their bristly arms, so dark
they appear black, with white bands growing
wider from pointed tip down to the circular base.
There is smoke in the sky, a tree down in the yard next door.
Everyone, it seems, has gone away.
I wish I could go somewhere warm without moving
from my chair, that the light would linger, just as it is now,
before the mountains vanish in the dark.
I wish the phone would ring, I wish this endless day
would cease, like a whisper from the far side of the world.

Steve Klepetar

If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Steve Klepetar  would be pleased to hear them.