--After Ocean Vuong, Roger Reeves, Susan Rich, and Frank O’Hara
January,
remember:
in the landscape of loneliness
you are just passing through.
Allow the muscles at the base
of your neck their unwinding.
You are as fragile as egrets on ice
in Long Island Sound.
January, you did not see your shadow.
Soon you will shed your brown fur
but not your low-slung bark, not your guttural growl.
Look for the forsythia’s bright yellow buds
blooming sunlight into sunlight,
and you will not feel so alone.
It is the end of January,
the coldest month of the year
when the days cheat the light, cheat you
of hours among the skeletal trees
which is like walking among mirrors,
your many selves reflected back to you
as bark and brush. January,
remember:
you create your own borders.
Watch the power lines bow
as the crows line up like notes in a song—
the deepest keys of the piano.
