THE SEASON

And then there is
my holiday list—names
of those I intend to send
greetings once a year,
including those people
I took for granted,
thinking they would
always be there
to receive my cards,
which now brings me
to the master template,
first name—he died
from stroke, delete,
skip three names down—
she didn’t make it
after a car accident,
delete, move the cursor
down to yet another—
didn’t survive Covid, delete
and keep scrolling past
the next few—who knows
where they are now,
haven’t heard from them
two years in a row, delete.
Scroll down, delete, scroll,
delete, delete, delete.
Missing names leave
so much white space,
but emptiness on a page
is easier to close up
than those feelings
brought on by the season.

Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb’s poetry has appeared in The Midwest Quarterly, Weber: The Contemporary West, About Place Journal, High Desert Journal, Clockhouse, AJN: The American Journal of Nursing, Terrain.org, Sonora Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Shapes That Stay, was recently published by Kelsay Books. She is co-founder of Native West Press