Ropes of Gold by Steve Klepetar

Portrait of a Woman in White, Frida Kahlo, 1930

Ropes of Gold  
 
She is bound to her beauty with ropes
of gold. She glows in sunlight, her white
dress stabs the eye. Her brothers, red
with drink, have left her squeezed tight
on this balcony. They will return when
her bridegroom comes with a lily, a key
and a cage. One is named for a cactus
that grows in the desert, one for a lonely
tree twisting on a headland above the sea.
The third is named Cloud; his face a mist
of breath and rain. All night she heard
waters rise, sensed the giant eye that stares
and stares as she stalks the courtyard of the moon.

by Steve Klepetar

Steve Klepetar’s work has appeared widely, and several of his poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Recent collections include My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto (Flutter Press) and Return of the Bride of Frankenstein (Kind of a Hurricane Press). Email him at [email protected].