3 poems for a new year

Anastasia Vassos

Gratitude for a Hell of a Year

Thanks a lot, 2018, for the kick in the teeth
for the lapse in my memory,
and for the last day in the life of my mother,
for the end of my consciousness as I presently know it,
for the grief that won’t go away,
for the waiting for the other side
of the coin to flip and bring me joy
wherever it may find me, for the wallowing
in sorrow or laughing at whatever
it is I cannot control,
and for the crap-fest that life can be
before it gets better, for the fresh crabmeat we ate
on the beach while the sun shone, for the Lake Erie
waves coughing into shore, for the beach glass,
for the wind, for the rutted roads of Kenya,
for the Maasai Villages inhabited by the happiest
people in the world, for the huts
made of cow dung and mud,
and for the ice cream,
and for haircuts, and for manicures, and for my sister,
for my life, thank you for my breath,
for the first gasp of fresh air in 2019.

Anastasia Vassos was born in Cleveland, Ohio and currently lives and writes in Boston, Massachusetts, where she writes lots of poems that will never see the light of day, and occasionally something worth something.

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Corey Mesler

New Year

The year turns like a rusty
key and I am older, older,
as the birds flock together to
stay warm, all heading in one
direction, out of here and
into the future, where, surely,
the next year and the next will
seem like ferocious plenitude.

Corey Mesler has published novels, short stories and poems and, with his wife, runs one of the oldest bookstores in the country.

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Laura M Kaminski

How to Begin

Now I want for nothing,
want for less,
want the space that’s buried
underneath the mess.

Laura M Kaminski is ambivalent about receiving packages during the holidays.