Driveway by Steve Klepetar

So long since you departed that late winter day 

with dirty snow still packed in the gutters, and spring 

nowhere in sight. From my window, now, I see 

two humpback hills rising toward a sea of low clouds, 

a green-gold curtain of leaves. 

The room feels chilly, the afternoon light a little strained, 

as if its sweetness were an ache, an absence coming on. 

You would have loved it here, the fireplace and wine 

goblets with their wide mouths, their smooth feel 

and heavy glass. Someone has pulled into our driveway, 

an old man and a woman wrapped in a shawl.

She stays in the car, he gets out, looks up at our roof, 

but by the time I open the door, he’s backing out, 

turning down Red Barn Road as if he were looking for you 

in the red maple beyond the house, back by the pond 

where dark birds gather like mourners near the shrinking reeds.

Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Klepetar is the author of fourteen poetry collections, the most recent of which are A Landscape in Hell (Woodhaven Press) and Why Glass Shatters (One Sentence Chaps).