New Year’s Eve, 2016
Michael Meyerhofer

That was the year nobody died:
all the musicians and actors,

the boxer, the poets, the Holocaust survivor,
an uncle in a star-spangled top hat,

their illnesses mere rumor
or at worst a reminder of something,

like a shawl thrown past the full moon.
And when, midway through winter,

the time came for reminiscence
and countdowns and champagne,

hardly anyone could think
of a single thing that had gone wrong,

which was itself quite unsettling.
So after a while, we gave up

trying to be sad and simply kissed
as the snows fell, transforming a nation

of lawns into canvases on which
trees scrawled their warnings in shadow.

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