standing at the back door accommodating
winter in gusts, the clear sharp moon in my throat
and my friends on a screen on my coffee table
but I can’t hear them over the bangs and they
have left their seats already to watch their own
displays. I had run upstairs with Peter and counted
again, at least eight of them, like I did on November 5th.
It’s the first year I didn’t hear a countdown – I always
forget the Hootenanny ignores the coming of the
new year, carries on, and the TV was muted anyway,
but this time, with just the two of us in the house,
at least in flesh, we did not count but we did kiss late
and the bang and crack and light that had been going on
since daylight now overtook the house, everyone’s house
as our web conference brought six of us together in stereo.
Amidst the madness I was grateful for the fireworks blurring
one year into the next because the expectation would have
been too much weight to place on one count, on ten numbers
standing separate and fragile, so instead the community
decided we would have a gradual bringing in of cheer, a blurring
of time, as it had been all year, and watching all the displays from
the back door, the clear sharp moon in my throat made me hopeful,
each blast of light and sound proving that despite everything,
so many of us were standing upright on this earth
and celebrating, still finding some glimmer of joy or hope
and throwing it in the air like a penny in a fountain.
