Simon Anton Niño Diego Baena

January 1

The harbor came into view. Yachts
moored where I anointed the water

with a message in a bottle, a poem
floating toward the mouth of the Pacific.

A few gulls stared at my ancient practice
of throwing everything—wide awake,

I stood along the passage, downing
six cans of beer. When I saw the dead,

with their wintry feet, dragging the stillness
of the grave around us the entire year.
 

Simon Anton Niño Diego Baena currently lives in the Philippines with his wife Xandy.  He is the author of the chapbook The Magnum Opus Persists in the Evening (Jacar Press). His work has appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Osiris, Poetry Daily, here at 2River, and elsewhere.