POEM FOR THE NEW YEAR

 

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I must allow myself to believe

there will be beauty, purple

cabbages halved and grainy photographs 

of constellations stitched

across the night. Today, I watched 

airplanes ask the sky to lift them up

and the sky said okay I will hold you

if only until you decide 

to go away. I saw

into the future and the future said

hey you’re not supposed to look.

She was wearing a pink feather boa

staring into a mirror. This year 

I tell myself I will be

good and I will crawl 

on my knees through the tundra,

crying. As of today I have not cried

in seven weeks although

I’d like to. This year,

the salmon will be coming back.

Salmon is a color named 

for the insides of a fish

whose scales flash silver

like the moon.

I asked a salmon what her name was

and she said astaxanthin and I said 

the blessings fall like rain. 

I asked this year what she had planned 

for me and she said 

listen what the birds say. 

This year I will be 

holding cups up to the wall of the night.

I’ll press my ear into their circle

openings like mouths. 

On the other side, I’ll hear my mother

singing her sad songs about the wind.

 

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BIO:

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​​Zeke Shomler earned a Combined MA/MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He also teaches secondary mathematics. A Pushcart nominee, his work has appeared in AGNI, Modern Language Studies, The Shore, and elsewhere.

 

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