The wolf moon
A poem
The wolf moon in January
always pulls me into a stupor,
the same stupor of youth
when we believed it could actually
be made out of cheese:
A delusional season
of enumeration,
as we begin again at one,
counting grams,
weighing our hearts against a feather,
singing a new lyric each night like:
“In this house,
Parmesan is a protein.”
We hardly speak out loud about
what makes us forlorn
as we stand at the fridge
that carries the fresh first page
of a new calendar: 2026, the year of our lord,
where the wine of possibility pairs nicely
with strange winter anger —
years and years of repressed something or other —
why is it that this
particular moon
always makes me want to howl?
Why is it that this
looping of life can leave me feeling lost,
why is it the looping is one more chance
to be born in wonder.
The dead of winter has never been the beginning,
but somewhere before the beginning:
the middle of sleep
where dreams begin,
not heaven, not unlike the womb.
A place where the wolf paces in a tomb of hope.
