Winter 07

Pull the shades. Darkness is a great aid
to speaking well. If this is wrong, your lover
will let you know with a gentle tug.

Begin with verbs – “rumble,” “jettison,”
“bend,” “explore.” Roll them in your mouth
like marbles or small stones, let their juices

sluice along your lips and cheeks and down
your radiant chin. If you stumble, look
away. Remember, a lisp is charming

in a foreign tongue. A wise lover will
smile, lift your head with one crooked finger
and whisper a secret name. Carve

this on the inside of your eyelids so that it flames
when the world turns dark. Learn the words
for “sheets” and “fluid,” and “grass” and “wine.”

When pleasure becomes so great you forget
to breathe, relax. You have become a silver
horse drinking at a cool spring, everything wet

and sweet and out of your control, grammar
of stars and leaves and wind, rhythm of fish
pulsing upriver, and the leaping syntax of flesh.


	How To Make Love in a Foreign Language By Steve Klepetar

	Pull the shades. Darkness is a great aid to speaking well. If this is wrong, your lover will let you know with a gentle tug. Begin with verbs – “rumble,” “jettison,” “bend,” “explore.” Roll them in your mouth like marbles or small stones, let their juices sluice along your lips and cheeks and down your radiant chin. If you stumble, look away. Remember, a lisp is charming in a foreign tongue. A wise lover will smile, lift your head with one crooked finger and whisper a secret name. Carve this on the inside of your eyelids so that it flames when the world turns dark. Learn the words for “sheets” and “fluid,” and “grass” and “wine.” When pleasure becomes so great you forget to breathe, relax. You have become a silver horse drinking at a cool spring, everything wet and sweet and out of your control, grammar of stars and leaves and wind, rhythm of fish pulsing upriver, and the leaping syntax of flesh. >>>More

	Despite having taught literature and writing at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota for the past twenty three years, Steve Klepetar's New York accent remains as thick as peanut butter penuche. Klepetar, whose poetry has appeared in a number of journals like Lily, Mad Hatter's Review, Whiteleaf, Apple Valley Review and others, claims to be the best known Shanghai-born-Jewish-American poet in all of Central Minnesota.