Pamela L. Sumners
My Desk On New Year's Day
is devoid of resolution.
Christmas cards that were returned
because I couldn't read my friend's
cracked handwriting with an unfamiliar
address, a half-eaten candy car, scraps
of my half-bitten thoughts from the year
now gone. My desk, two smushedtogether
TV trays because we needed the oasis
formerly known as my study, my oak desk,
my space for a son who had to stay home
a high-school year--because a bad man
was president and bad people followed him,
maskless, seeding the streets with death
and discontent. Here are abandoned
words, unanswered invitations, the RSVP card
of a new year awaiting polite response.
Bio
Pamela L. Sumners is the author of two poetry collections, "Ragpicking Ezekiel's Bones" (UnCollected Press) and "Etiquette for a Pandemic" (Backroom Window Press) and the Rane Arroyo prizewinning chapbook "Finding Helen" (Seven Kitchens Press). A twotime Pushcart nominee, her work has been widely anthologized, including in both the 2018 and 2019 64 Best anthologies. She is a native Alabamian and a recovering lawyer who now lives in St. Louis with her wife and various rescue dogs.