I clasp January to me giddy
with hope for its newborn
cry that clears away the worn
out year like so much tinsel

carted off to storage. I love
January’s uncluttered room, its
freshly laundered calendar innocent
and white beneath a pure blue sky

grazed by bone-clean trees. To love
January is an acquired taste,
like learning to let the tongue
curl around the slow, sweet burn

of Tuaca’s golden fire.
I do not want to wait for April
to fall in love, July to run with
a salty sea, October to be crowned

in color. I want to drink it all
in now when everything is possible
and I and the world are infants again
babbling, listening for birdsong.