It is fashionable these days to view New Year’s resolutions with cynicism. After all, we know very well that year after year our best intentions go unrealized. Still, I view the whole custom of New Year’s resolutions with sympathy and even with delight. They are an opportunity for us to express our often latent but ever-present desire to be changed.

The facility in which I’m incarcerated is a tightly-packed, poorly maintained, old building, with no air-conditioning in the southern housing units where I’m located. A heat wave lasting over a week with high humidity and triple-digit temperatures causes a degree of suffering, especially for older and ill inmates, that I’m sure would cause a public outcry if the public did (could) ever find out about it.

Last summer I was in Ely, Minnesota, a small town at the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, millions of acres of wild land. I was in the combination sporting goods/book store. Standing in line, I could see a sign that said something like, “We think this book is so important that we are selling it at our cost. We won’t make a cent on it. But we think you need to read it.”

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.