XMAS 2021

Pop-Pop “Breezy” Gaetano (at bar)
December 1970
44th Ward, PHILADELPHIA PA

Circa nineteen-eighty-one
he pulls you back…
—Liz Phair

Wholehearted faith is about recognizing our belovedness.
—Jeff Chu

Hate everything, just don’t let it hate you.
—Big Brother, me, to Little Sister

Hard getting up and I can’t remember the dream I had with us except that it felt good and the first thing to come into focus was a shiny new penny that fell off my leg and to the floor, heads-up—2021. Eggs and bacon at my old boss’s, where I used to work and live, with my adopted family. Posey Jo’s mom and dad, separated and working together. Her grandparents, same. After breakfast Posey Jo’s mom and me talk about the X (and the ruin she represents), moving forward whole-heartedly, places to live (Lisbon) and you.

Came home and slept for 5 hours, woke up to video call with Mama Greenberg, Don, my adopted mom. I love her so much. We talk so deep we hover, about: death, growth, publishing, poetry, the X (and the ruin she represents) and you. Warm all day, cool at night. Heard from another poet on STRIDE—”Like DeNiro in Raging Bull, taunting through his own blood: ‘You never got me down Ray. You never got me down.’” Your name is musical, it rises from kvetching and conversation throughout the too-warm Christmas, 11 years later on a calliope wind.

STRIDE, perfectly bound in jet-black ink on gamma green covers designed by Snakes Will Eat You, will include a 4.5×5.5″ broadside of RECURRENT, letter pressed in black ink on 100lb. lemondrop yellow paper, with the promo code yearofthetiger now through Friday at jimtrainer.net.

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