INSTRUCTIONS OF THE CALENDAR for kari edwards

January

Take a year in your
hand—it’s smallness

rumbles like an antique
boxcar in a shoebox

diorama. Dare to
squeeze it. Drum

your fingers in the pleasing
way that fingers do.

Let go of the year. Let
your eyes go after it.


February

Take a murderer
drinking at a Tiki

Lounge. Shower
her with a box

of fingers. Ram
the year of fingers

into a dram of rum.
Add rubble. Say

yes to the advent
of their lord, please,

go easy into that
Good Friday.


March

Rotate your arms
around the eyes

of a giant. Again
time will tell.

Please the yes
box, depress no

levers on the way
there. There

is someone rubbing
on the horizon’s diode.


April

Ever is the ease
of a skybox

at the wet foot
of a rumbling

fjord. Consider death
at the Fish Fry for what

it has to be. Thresh
your marred toenails

into the earth
here. Hear the

sound of its reply.


May

Lace a slim ode
to antique marriage

within the heal
of a red shoe. Rest

under the wetly wreathed
hearth of a lapsing lord.

Ply there the forged
diadem of the mayfly.


June

Pour an arch
of voice over

a triad of heaving
words to ward

off the plight
of high art.


July

There is a light
from which to avert

your eyes. Do
not. You cannot

afford a house among
the eaves during

the trial of the thigh.


August

Replay the daring
waltz of cannons

for the almond-fed
horses. Let each

mongrel pluck
a leaf of evening

with its knotted eye.


September

Lack not a loaf
to repay the elm

for its nutty gruel.
Watch the dance

of the pink
salmon, it alone

knows how to
die without

the nonsense
of intervention.


October

If your hawk dies
on a Monday, wrap

its talon within
a grief-withered

orchid and inter
it where anon

you may repast.
Acknowledge

it with a smile,
but not a laugh.


November

Either paste
a button of cork

onto an awkward
torch-lit ledge

or teach a herd
of stallions

to ride for
a mile behind

a simile. Both
portend luck.


December

A smiling patsy
pretends to idle

near an empty
beehive above

the duck pond.
His treachery

is utterly unknown
to him. When his

gaze turns to
consider the azure

of the sky, steal
his medallion

and bury it
in the orchard.

Many visions shall
spring from apples

eaten from the tree
that sprouts from

this particular spot.