New Year's Poem

Before the ball falls, I will

finish the last poem, clear clutter,
fold pigs into blankets, roll cheese logs,
find the sheet music to Auld Lang Syne
bite my lip, chop almonds, hang clothes,
empty hampers, trash cans, superstitions
clamoring to be met with everything new,
though all I can think of is you, and then,
not this bleak year to come, my birthday.

I’ll never get the house clean by five pm
much less midnight, I should have started
after Christmas, should’ve said yes, left
that night when plowed snow blocked
all the parking spaces, black sky
quilted with lights, you against the angled car
to apologize, we'd wait for some sort of magic
on nights like that, tonight, here’s another

year gone and to come making do, holding
memories like a chalice to my bloody lip,
I am dizzy with awareness, with regret,
a child who doesn’t gets what she wants
because she never asks, chopping onions,
for help, chopping, chopping, rolling, humming,
I will close my eye to better remember, wish
away the kiss at midnight, that sad song.