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      April 9, 2014SundayJanuary O'Neil

      You are the start of the week
      or the end of it, and according
      to The Beatles you creep in
      like a nun. You’re the second
      full day the kids have been
      away with their father, the second
      full day of an empty house.
      Sunday, I’ve missed you. I’ve been
      sitting in the backyard with a glass
      of Pinot waiting for your arrival.
      Did you know the first Sweet 100s
      are turning red in the garden,
      but the lettuce has grown
      too bitter to eat. I am looking
      up at the bluest sky I have ever seen,
      cerulean blue, a heaven sky
      no one would believe I was under.
      You are my witness. No day
      is promised. You are absolution.
      You are my unwritten to-do list,
      my dishes in the sink, my brownie
      breakfast, my braless day.

      from #41 - Fall 2013

      January Gill O’Neil

      “When I was an undergrad at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, my creative writing teacher, Toi Derricotte, played a cassette recording of Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl,’ and I was blown away. Didn’t think you could do or say such things in a poem. It’s taken me 25 years, a few moves, a marriage, a divorce, and two kids, but I have finally shaped a kind of life in which my (poetic) vision matches my values. By the way, my two kids, ages nine and seven, can recite Gwendolyn Brooks’ ‘We Real Cool’ with emphasis on the ‘we.’ It is real cool.”

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