Jeannine Hall Gailey

JANUARY IS A MOUTH OF DOUBT

Which threatens to swallow us all.
My feet never grow warmer. 

Marriages seem to flicker
in the cold. No coat enough.

Everyone’s knuckles crack.
In the air overhead, geese honk, aimless.

In front, a lake wide open, a few dead grasses.
We always follow the leader. 

Film noir shadows in the gray sun
that never seems to rise or set, only glower. 

Even diamond doesn’t flicker, sullen.
The meager light of paperwhites in a glass

the only light. An unforgiving set of weeks,
leading us into more winter.

Every sled ride ends with a jolt.
My voice won’t hold. I can’t read. 

We keep shaking our heads. 
We sing hymns. We suspect the neighbors of murder, 

or at least not taking out the trash. 
I am lonely, and the deer outside eating the heather. 

The birds twitter nervously against the window,
looking in. We can’t wait. It’s got to be now. 

Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. She's the author of five books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and Field Guide to the End of the World, winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and the SFPA's Elgin Award. Her work has appeared appear in journals such as American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry.