The First Poem of the New Year Has a Sore Throat
And it doesn't arrive on the first of the year, but the Twelfth
A date we instinctually empathize with without understanding why
Like a rock in the shoe of our skull that works its way into the sock
There's a few days, maybe weeks, yet until they are empty again
The sidewalks and the streets in the early hours of morning
As the runners and the gym-goers and the salad-eaters
Remember they survived the end of the Cretaceous
Not by running, but by sleeping deep and warm and soft
Beneath the earth. Their resolve weakens, but it has not broken
Me? I wake this morning, my throat sore and swollen and inflamed
Before I can ever put on my shoes and force my
Bare knees out into the cold morning air of January
Maybe next year, I tell myself, as I brew a cup of tea
With honey and write the first poem of the new year
The sun rises silent and lonely in the morning mist
In the distance an alarm sings; first, for five minutes, then for ten
A stranger I will never know rolls over and goes back to sleep
CS Crowe is three crows in a trench coat that gained sentience after eating a magic bean. He spends his days writing stories on a stolen laptop and trading human teeth for peanuts. A poet and storyteller from the Southeastern United States, he believes stories and poems are about the journey, not the destination, and he loves those stories that wander in the wilderness for forty years before finding their way to the promised land.