Year of the Rabbit

Year of the Rabbit

Mary Grace Mangano

The new year came like something pale and thrifted,
A cousin's rumpled, cast-off hand-me-down.
I looked at it and thought: This isn't mine.
Like all the other years, it gave me time.

I walked around in it for days, searching
The pockets for a little bit of change,
Perhaps a different pattern. No such luck.
My hair collected on the sleeves and cuffs.

The flowers wear the same thing every year.
Each Black-eyed Susan seems to be the same.
Beneath the sun, they die and grow and change.
We still love yellow, they declare. How strange.

---

Mary Grace Mangano
Poet & Professor

Mary Grace is a poet, writer, and professor. Her writing has been published in Literary Matters, Mezzo Cammin, Plough, Church Life Journal, America, The Windhover, and others. She lives in New Jersey.

Photography by Lena Polishko