SPRING IN THE NEW YEAR

Partial inventory of all items left dripping in the kitchen: one faucet, two knives. According to the fancy new guidebook I bought, you don't go crazy all by yourself. Out of some freshly sealed envelope of darkness, every morning we have to invent the sun in order to see it, have to invent the sky's cherry-blue backdrop in order witness the sun's milky light. Eventually there comes a point, though, when our inventions fail us: patentless, faulty, we wake up in some vaguely familiar pitch black. Yesterday was different we think, without entirely understanding how or why. But now it is the first day of spring and—reverent—we take the time to remember. Today is the first day of spring. Half-weighted flashlights aimed and ready, we ceaselessly pray that we will never ever have less.

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MUFFINS

"We are told, for example, that Ralph Waldo Emerson, while he disapproved of laughter, did occasionally allow himself to smile, but he did so only with his eyes closed."

A fleetingly-glimpsed smile
is a homesickness

for the comfort
of what in all

likelihood
should have remained

hidden from view

in the first place.
Then always remember

not to point and laugh
at my well spruced forest

of back hair
when I'm swimming

at the beach.
O you lonely anthologists

of still born moments

and awkward silences,
of nervous blinking,

clammy hands,
greasy handshakes,

close, for once, your eyes.

There is a light
so bright there

that it can oftentimes
be difficult to see.

But stroll with me
for a while now

anyway. I have
freshly baked blueberry

muffins that we can eat,
then turn into so

many crumbs
at our feet.

I know a bawdy

yet ultimately harmless
joke that we can chuckle

over before one
of us starts to

uncontrollably spit,
ceaselessly, forcefully, masterfully choke.                  

Close your eyes.
No one, nothing is smiling or waiting.

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I assume Emerson ate at least one muffin during his lifetime, but can't be sure. If he did it was probably of the bran variety. Following fall and winter, spring is my favorite season. I like the blooming of the flowers, budding of the trees.