New Year
Gary Percesepe

Next to go was that evening’s asparagus cluster. Before they could be sautéd, they launched and lodged in an Encyclopedia Britannica. Blinkered trail horses bolted the bridge to New Jersey, the mayor in hot pursuit. Then, everything went still for a minute. Even the mice in the kitchen quit foraging, settling old debts. It was the New Year, swaddled like a baby. Grain will ripen, I thought. Oaks will blossom. Rivers still run from the mountains to the sea. The doorbell rang. It was my portly neighbor, Rob. I kissed him and said wait here. I told Rob that it was true, what the poet said, that you can feel happy with one piece of your heart. I went to fetch those shelved asparagus, tearful in Volume N.

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