Richard Hoffman (1949 – ) is the author of the poetry collections Without Paradise: Poems, and Gold Star Road, which won the Sheila Motton Award from the New England Poetry Club. He is also the author of the memoir Half the House, and a collection of short fiction, Interference & Other Stories. A writer-in-residence at Emerson College in Boston, Hoffman also teaches for the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast low-residency MFA program.

To read Richard Hoffman’s poem “December 31st” click

December 31^st

by Richard Hoffman

All my undone actions wander
naked across the calendar,

a band of skinny hunter-gatherers,
blown snow scattered here and there,

stumbling toward a future
folded in the New Year I secure

with a pushpin: January’s picture
a painting from the 17th century,

a still life: Skull and mirror,
spilled coin purse and a flower.

_

“December 31st” from Emblem, © 2011 by Richard Hoffman – Barrow Street Press