Prologue:
a. Three More Midnights
New Year’s morning –
here in eastern standard time
I’m privy to the future
and half-jokingly
try to warn those still in the past,
Don’t go!
b. Janus
The push from inside,
the pull from outside;
me, in a doorway,
fumbling for my keys.
1. New Year’s Day
Christmas is over,
lights are doused,
the year has turned,
and you are still gone.
Now it is just winter –
an end, a beginning.
2. Colder Than
It’s colder than an interrupted memory,
a name that’s only halfway spoken,
winter calling me, then hanging up,
a window waiting for a face,
a treaty shedding footnotes in the rain,
a prophet in his old hometown,
the promise of a safehouse far away,
the final ticks of orange froth
absorbed into the curvature of earth.
3. Anniversary
This time
the wind leans into me
as my silent friend
the moon
searches in vain
for the other half of her halo.
4. Oak
A gale
sings through dead leaves
that forgot to let go;
I wish
I didn’t have to care
about your problems.
5. The First Law
The snow of winters past –
we thought it wouldn’t last,
but little did we know
it would evaporate,
then on another date
return as brand new snow.
6. Frost Flowers
They straddle the border
of autumn and winter;
they bloom in the evening,
specific and fleeting
like gossamer sculptures
from ruptures in crownbeard
and dittany stems;
the rarest of flowers,
they melt with the sunrise
or shatter on contact,
and spend their best hours
anonymously.
7. Sleepless Night #1
Eternity,
and my place in it.
8. Morning Drive
There is a sports fan
with cayenne pepper in his shoes,
Blue Motel Room and Broken Horses,
a “did you know” to end the hour;
there is snow in an orchard,
salt on my windshield,
a house stripped to its bones
and a traffic light not working.
Still, everyone stops, looks, goes
as if nothing was broken,
as if, at the end of the world,
someone is saying, Places everyone!
There will be no second take!
9. Secrets
I am hoarding secrets
like emergency rations,
keeping silent
about the map I found in a dream,
and my shadow’s late night escapes.
You don’t need me when you sleep,
it tells me.
10. Future Guests
A tulip and a groundhog
sleep in the earth;
one will awaken
and leave too soon,
the other will awaken
and stay too long.
11. Wildcard
My team was eliminated
and it’s almost a relief
to have no stake in outcomes.
12. Amaryllis
Unaware of winter
in her viridian shift dress
and ivory bonnet,
she is inevitable,
declaring from the console table,
Today is an important event.
13. Sleepless Night #2
A phone that could ring,
but doesn’t.
14. Sonora
Our old haunt
is nearly mythical now;
we speak of it
with the rehearsed breath
of elegy,
airbrush sprawl and traffic,
excuse fires and dust,
marvel at the way
peak and firmament met
like puzzle pieces.
15. 23.5°
Fahrenheit for the high,
the tilt away from the sun.
16. Mother
I suspect she carried a secret ache
that defied reason or explanation.
As her son I know it too,
and wear it like a badge.
17. A Letter
When I wrote you
half a lifetime ago
to say I love you
and we should stay in touch
I didn’t know
I was floating a check
that wouldn’t clear.
18. Caesura
Daylight is older than eight minutes,
air is a square root of itself,
and the present is a door, mid-slam.
19. MLK Day
Dream and reality
merge like veils of blue
at the borders of oceans.
20. Sleepless Night #3
The shade and register of a poem
that won’t leave me alone.
21. Inauguration
A familiar devil leaves the statehouse
as a similar devil moves in.
We have learned nothing.
22. A Birthday
a. Limbo
Another you didn’t want,
another we didn’t expect.
And yet.
b. Mahanaim
And David uttered when he knew
the pyrrhic victory he’d won,
Would I had died instead of you,
Oh Absalom, my son, my son!
23. Lull
It’s 57 Fahrenheit (an ominous reprieve)
as mother nature looms on this apocalyptic eve.
24. Storm
A heron colored sky –
new snow will cover old snow
(unless they were wrong).
They were right.
25. Snowed In
I start an intimidating book,
drink more coffee
because we’re out of wine;
there is no sense of urgency
as snow accumulates
like tomorrow’s litany;
I almost say, Look how lovely!
Instead I turn another page
and remain silent.
26. Aftermath
Ice boulders left by the snow plows
block my car.
I try to roll out my trash cans,
and feel like a character
in some Scandinavian film
with English subtitles.
27. Why I Love The Moon
The gate is frozen at day’s end –
I shake it violently with red hands,
unleash a string of expletives;
it finally breaks loose,
and I slam it closed.
Her expression never changes.
28. Vapor (James 4:14)
Four generations in one photo –
the oldest is gone,
the youngest will not remember him.
29. Salvation
a. Wildwood, 1988
I met Jesus in the off-season
amid waves and weathered oak.
We walked past the boarded up shops,
and he saved me in an open café.
Decades later
he still writes to me in red ink,
dials me up with his scarred hands,
invites me for coffee.
I say, Yes Lord,
we really must catch up soon.
b. Salem 2019
They mapped me out,
decided what to take,
what to add or change.
Which sacrifices were worth it.
Your body doesn’t like
what we did to it,
they told me after.
I thanked them.
30. Snowbird
A dark-eyed junco
hops on a sheet of snow,
ground-feeding,
unafraid of me.
I foolishly ask him,
Why are you still here?
and imagine his reply:
Why are you?
31. Cold Open
A year begins
before the beginning –
before titles and credits,
before exposition,
before the holding of hands,
before the pulling away,
before we name the shadow land
we find ourselves in.
Epilogue:
January doesn’t resolve,
it just changes names.
