New Years 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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