• The rain this morning falls   
• on the last of the snow

• and will wash it away. I can smell   
• the grass again, and the torn leaves

• being eased down into the mud.   
• The few loves I’ve been allowed

• to keep are still sleeping
• on the West Coast. Here in Virginia

• I walk across the fields with only   
• a few young cows for company.

• Big-boned and shy,
• they are like girls I remember

• from junior high, who never   
• spoke, who kept their heads

• lowered and their arms crossed against   
• their new breasts. Those girls

• are nearly forty now. Like me,   
• they must sometimes stand

• at a window late at night, looking out   
• on a silent backyard, at one

• rusting lawn chair and the sheer walls   
• of other people’s houses.

• They must lie down some afternoons   
• and cry hard for whoever used

• to make them happiest,   
• and wonder how their lives

• have carried them
• this far without ever once

• explaining anything. I don’t know   
• why I’m walking out here

• with my coat darkening
• and my boots sinking in, coming up

• with a mild sucking sound   
• I like to hear. I don’t care

• where those girls are now.   
• Whatever they’ve made of it

• they can have. Today I want   
• to resolve nothing.

• I only want to walk
• a little longer in the cold

• blessing of the rain,   
• and lift my face to it.

Kim Addonizio is an American poet who lives and teaches in the Bay Area. She is the author of two novels, two books about writing poetry, two collections of short fiction, and several engaging and edgy collections of poetry, one of which, Tell Me, was a National Book Award finalist. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Of her recent collection of short stories, The Palace of Illusions, published in 2014 by Soft Skull Press, the novelist Katie Crouch has written: “The stories...are searingly beautiful, evocative and surprising. Kim Addonizio is a master who gives the traditional story form a startling twist.” “New Year’s Day” is from Tell Me and is reprinted with permission of BOA Editions.