It’s nine degrees and snowing, and the woods
are full of owls in love. It’s mating season.
No one’s shrieking. No one cares who cooks
for whom. They’ve whittled their vocabulary
to two essential syllables, hoo-hurrrr,
which means I’m here. Quite the resolution,
given circumstances. Mine is that I won’t
discharge a firearm at midnight, although
there’s never been a year I wanted more
to kill. Let 2017 hightail across the threshold
like a thief, pockets stuffed with stolen hopes
and dreams and petty cash and little plastic
bottles of prescription meds, but I won’t
shoot. No telling where the bullets go,
so late and early in this kind of dark.
For now, champagne—champagne
for everyone. Tomorrow, when
the new year stumbles through
the window sill and paws
our eyelids like a child
wanting snuggled
underneath a quilt,
we’ll let it in.
Sean Kelbley lives on a farm in southeastern Ohio, in a house he and his husband built. He works as an elementary school counselor. A previous contributor to Poets Reading the News, he has additional work published or forthcoming at Crab Creek Review, Rise Up Review, and Tuck Magazine.
Photo by Kimson Doan.
