RITUAL

by Amy Shimshon-Santo

the year crawls toward an end 
sharp knife between its teeth
& bleeding tongue

a year of vowels

displaced from their consonants,
zipped together 

by a three letter word 
that is not good for children 
& other living things

I walk to the edge of language
thin stick between my hands 
holding a makeshift flag

colorless as the memory of water
scavenged from cotton 
clothing of the departed

it is time to place the year inside 
an urn, bury it in the Earth
lie down beside the unimaginable

hear the new year drumming
& dreaming itself into being, wanting
to be born

Dr. Amy Shimshon-Santo is a warm-blooded vertebrate with hair. She writes  poetry, essays, performs spoken word, improvisation, and choreography. Read or listen to her poetry collections: Catastrophic Molting (2020), Even the Milky Way is Undocumented (2020), and look for her forthcoming book Random Experiments in Bioluminescence (2024). Teaching and facilitating trans-local community arts projects have been central to her social practice for 30+ years. She is available as a guest artist, arts educator, coach, and editor. Dr. A has been nominated for an Emmy Award and three Pushcart Prizes in poetry and creative non-fiction. She was a finalist for the Night Boat Poetry Prize, and earned a place in the U.S. Service Learning Hall of Fame. Connect with her at @shimshona / @amyshimshon

DEAR 2022

an abecedarian

by Susan Vespoli

Abyss Painting by Gillian Fortson at Saatchi Art

Au revoir, heaviest year of my life,

bringer of shit and light,

carrier of catastrophe, 

death of my adult kid by bullet

explosion. It’s hard to say the word “dead,”

followed by the word “Adam.” I look for a

gentler way to say, “murdered son.”

How about “deceased,” or “angel son,” or

“invisible winged-son,” or “no longer

journeying on the physical plane.”

Kris, my cash-pay splurge of a

long-term therapist planted a

metaphor to help me

navigate: walking

over an abyss, holding a balancing

pole made of coping tools to remain

quaver-proof, (like poetry, therapy, 12-step, being in the

right-here-right-now), the rod’s weight increa-

-sing my moments of inertia,

tamping my tendency to fall. And I

understand, so I trek, carrying his

vivid lucence, his essence, as I

wire-walk, step tip to toe, eyes on

xystus on the other side of this

year, where I will enter 2023, sit cross-legged

zazen on the floor and breathe, Adam with me still. 

Editor's Note: The New Verse News previously published three of long-time contributor Susan Vespoli's poems about the killing of her son by police:  "Before I Knew Adam Had Died" and "My Ex-Husband Calls To Tell Me Our Son Has Been Shot By Police," and "Police Violence in Reverse."

Susan Vespoli writes from Phoenix, Arizona where police violence and the criminalization of homelessness are alive and well.