Hibernation Sonnet

In Western New York, the winter is dark. Better, that, than California.
The sun there is a flare blaring impending disaster. Smog-coughed and
sun-cancered. Here, the sky is a closed book. Forgotten. Only promise
keeps us awake to the un-day of another hour of gray. Time unspools

like a wound string unstrung by a kitten. Like noodles in the bath.
I’ve never seen a body splayed, but I’ve heard our nerves are wound
like that. What is better than copping out, cancelling plans? I would,
but I have a thing to do. Hair to shampoo. Something like that. It’s like

the planet decides, in Western New York, to shut the valve. Electricity
recedes. This is what the mouth is for, the candles say, as they open
like tongues for the living. But because I know the best arguments
consider the other side, I’ll say: I adore the sand, the infinite waves

of the Pacific. Humidity a moist mask on this dry parchment skin.
But O, East Coast polar vortex. O, Eden. Cast me out. I’ll beg back in.

Alicia Hoffman is the author of three collections, most recently ANIMAL (Futurecycle Press). Her poems have been published in a variety of journals, including Thrush, Radar Poetry, Trampset, The Night Heron Barks, Tar River Poetry, The Penn Review, Glass: A Poetry Journal, One Art, and elsewhere.