By Jaye Kranz

It’s a new year and my friends are snowing in.  

It’s a new year and my friends are swimming out.  

It’s a new year and I meant to be still. I meant to slip between
the years and do one complete back-up of my core, there.  

I meant to give away at least half of my wholes. 

I meant to reply to last year. 

It’s a new year and we throw prawn-heads to the dog
while the algorithm plays Love Theme from Spartacus.   

It’s a new year and we’re on the roof counting from ten to one
with strangers we can hear but can’t see
on the other side of the fence.  

Dear Year, I see now, how fireworks require emptiness
but can still enter the muscle
of my dog’s hind legs. 

It’s a new year and my goal is to remain continuous
with the colour red. 

It’s a new year and I’m holding my dog upright in the hall. 

It’s not thunder, I tell him. It’s tomorrow.  

(It’s playing Never Grow Old.) 

It’s a new year and my friend asks me to repeat my goals
for the year in case they have grown more substantial
the second time around. 

It’s a new year and the bedroom windowsill is jammed
with last year’s seed-heads.  

Six of us lie on the king bed and stare
at the pencil lines of wolves.  

We are a river in a rainstorm. We are upwelling. 

Year, now we are the high lights. Firecracker-fuelled,
barium-bright antimony-glittery.  

Year, we are higher than the building code.  

For a moment, even the helicopters look wistful. 

(It’s playing Big Time Sensuality). 

It’s a new year and it’s not like we thought it wasn’t going to hurt.  

It’s a new year and I think about how, after everyone had left,
the algorithm kept going; 

how laughter lays itself down
on a salvia bed. 

(It’s playing Don’t Go.) 

Dear Year, I almost lost them. 

It’s a new year and Here Is What You Need To Know—
The hydrants have run dry.
It’s grounding planes.
The fires have names.   

You can see your year from space.  

Year, do you see how the ladybug rounding the spine of my book
is unswayed by the wind?   

I’m sorry, Year, I did not reply.  

(It’s playing Don’t Blame Me.) 

Year, I forgot that winds have angels and devils.  

I promise my dog I’ll take him to the part of the creek
where he dives for stones but can never touch the bottom.   

It’s a new year and we’ve been writing this poem for years. 

The game is never about the stones. It’s about how carelessly
he can throw himself after them.    

Year, can we skip, to the part where we’re standing
in front of the painting that is only what remains
of the painting, that was too big for any wall;
that anyway, did not survive
infinity.  

Near it, the sign says: Do Not Touch. 

It turns out you can’t really touch a thing 
that never had a vanishing point
to begin with. 

When I toss the stones, his eyes are wide nets.

It’s a new year and I suddenly miss those bleached postcards
I’d get around now with aerial views of forts and ports
and ocean liners and sunsets over shorelines
with the words, 

            We swam here  

(a hand-drawn arrow to the picture on other side)  

and

            Come! There’s still time

Red, I say, touching the looping brushstrokes anyway.  

* ‘Infinity Net’ is the name of a series of artworks by the artist Yayoi Kusama 

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Jaye Kranz is a poet, writer and documentary audio maker living on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia. She is the recipient of an Emerging Writers Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts (now Creative Australia), and winner of the 2025 Plaza Prize for Poetry, judged by Natalie Diaz. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in: Poetry Northwest, Best of Australian Poems, The Cincinnati Review, Verse Daily, West Branch, The Florida Review, Foglifter, The Marrow Poetry, Cordite, and Frozen Sea. Other writing in: The Monthly, Australian Book Review, short story collections and a compendium of four novellas (Picador, Vintage). Her award-winning sound-rich audio features have been commissioned for BBC Radio, ABC Radio National, Arts Centre Melbourne, and the State Library of Victoria. She is writing her first collection of poems. Find her at www.jayekranz.com.