by Ann E. Michael

If you have had 12 happy months in your life
you are lucky.

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If you have had 12 happy months in your life
you are lucky.
I would tell you to be grateful but that is
your choice to make.
If you had that happy year when you were too young
to recall it,
lucky nonetheless. If the months were not sequential, yet
they make a year.
If you are 20 that year is a large percentage of your
happy life. Lucky.
If you are 90 and have but one happy year, it is compressed,
a diamond.
Listen: 12 happy months are enough.

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© Ann E. Michael

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Ann E. Michael (she/her) lives in eastern Pennsylvania. Her latest poetry collection (2024) is Abundance/Diminishment. Her work has appeared in Ninth Letter, One Art, Ekphrasis Review, and many others, as well as in numerous anthologies. She chronicles her writing, reading, and garden on a long-running blog at www.annemichael.blog.

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