Hogmanay,
the Gifting of
Another Year

A poem by Corey Mesler

The end of 2005 has come.
It wears a hat like a scar.
I am alone in a house fretted with
silence. I am the silence.
Music fills some chinks. The house,
an old dog, shakes its coat of paint.
As the year sputters I feel chill.
The calendar is light as ash,
its frangible pages almost wings. . . .

Corey Mesler is the owner of Burke's Book Store in Memphis, Tennessee, one of the country's oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores. He has published poetry and fiction in numerous journals including Rattle, Pindeldyboz, Quick Fiction, Cranky, Thema, Mars Hill Review, Poet Lore, and others. He has also been a book reviewer for The Memphis Commercial Appeal. A short story of his was chosen for the 2002 edition of New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, published by Algonquin Books. Talk, his first novel, appeared in 2002. Nice blurbs from Lee Smith, John Grisham, Robert Olen Butler, Frederick Barthelme, and others. He has a new novel, We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon, just out from Livingston. He has five chapbooks due out in 2006. He also claims to have written, "Bennie and the Jets." Most importantly, he is Toby and Chloe's dad and Cheryl's husband. Corey can be reached via email at chmesler@earthlink.net.

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Hogmanay, the Gifting of Another Year

Hogmanay,
the Gifting of
Another Year