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Twenty-two


by Gary Hardaway


The year begins well here
with much needed rain
and tee-shirt temperatures.

In Twenty-one, words
abandoned me. Silence
reigned. No poems visited

my dome of bone. My
network of streets
shrank yet further.

Precarity and loss prevailed.
Estrangement intensified
as we kept count of those

dead and gravely ill.
Covid conquered us
in ways we'd never seen.

Twenty-two begins in hope
and dread, in vaccine
and Omicron. We cannot

know what awaits. We
can but guess and keep
a small faith in what

Providence may bring.
Let me strive to find a
language again and

to reclaim the
thoroughfares that
once were mine.

01.01.2022
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