Fragments for the End of the Year by Jennifer K. Sweeney.

Post 398 - Here's a poem as my last post for 2009. The recipient of the 2009 James Laughlin Award for How to Live on Bread and Music (Perugia Press, 2009), Jennifer K. Sweeney received the 2006 Main Street Rag Poetry Award for her debut collection Salt Memory. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Sweeney serves as assistant editor for DMQ Review and currently lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with her husband, poet Chad Sweeney.

Fragments for the End of the Year by Jennifer K. Sweeney

On average, odd years have been the best for me.

I’m at a point where everyone I meet looks like a version
of someone I already know.

Without fail, fall makes me nostalgic for things I’ve never experienced.

The sky is molting. I don’t know
if this is global warming or if the atmosphere is reconfiguring
itself to accommodate all the new bright suffering.

I am struck by an overwhelming need to go to Iceland.

Despite all awful variables, we are still full of ideas
as possible as unsexed fruit.

I was terribly sorry to be the one to explain to the first graders
the connection between the sunset and pollution.

On Venus you and I are not even a year old.

Then there were two skies.
The one we fly through and the one
we bury ourselves in.

I appreciate my wide beveled spatula which fulfills
the moment I realized I would grow up and own such things.

I am glad I do not yet want sexy bathroom accessories.
Such things.

In the story we were together every time.

On his wedding day, the stone in his chest
not fully melted but enough.

Sometimes I feel like there are birds flying out of me.


Happy New Year to everyone. And thank you for reading my blog this year. I hope you'll continue next year.