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A poem for the new year by Reader poetry editor Joseph O’Brien
“Valediction Forbidding Nostalgia: New Year’s Eve”
For Cecilia
It’s a party like any other
We’ve ever been wallpapered and rugged
Into — the food and drink disarrayed, the bother
And mess left behind in the hosts’ kitchen
For tomorrow and tomorrow and, well, later tomorrow.
After dinner, the guests began to re-mingle,
Become further watered and drugged
By nostalgia as strong as the champagne
And steep wines timed to release all our sorrow.
The married cluster apart from the single
And standing between, Janus
And I, reflecting a window between us,
The end of December and a year.
The sun closes down early behind the darkness
In the large French doors that bless
Our hosts’ ravaged entrées.
In my leaning length, I am standing there
And my full reflection embarrasses me.
I look away but not before spying
Your pretty, conversational face
Engaged with a friend in pleasantry.
Lustrous with solemnity’s finesse.
I pretend to be chasing after you (you lying
On the bed of my brow in age
And bounty), that you are a new conquest,
And I sidle up in mock-false courage
To ask our friend your name.
You roll your eyes at the jest
And stop short of a chuckle
Before returning to the same
Conversation you were having with our friend
At some point between midnight’s middle
And year’s end.
The bells on television count off,
Refresh in a strange way,
Satisfy the bones, the blood, the flesh enough –
A rush of time, a new year, new month, another day….
Then for a moment, real terror –
The thought crosses my mind, a soft buzzing,
Like a computer coughing up an error,
The eyes go blurry, fuzzing
Around the edges
Like the translucent albumen
In a pan
Beginning to cook
White toward the yolk.
What if my life,
More than a practical joke,
Was a series of walks along the ledges
(I can’t help with each step to shake myself and look)
Of high buildings, all the windows locked?
Would I be as shocked
To discover that you were not really my wife?
But it dawns on me that you must
Be my wife — memory is one sign
That these years have not been in vain —
And the other? The thin frigid gust
That, nudging aside the curtain,
Squeezes through the cracked seal of a windowpane.
Yes, you too, winter — please, please, come in.
Take shelter from this year’s last night sky.
Why,
Not even January is as certain.
Joseph O'Brien
Joseph O’Brien is poetry editor of The San Diego Reader.
Here's something you might be interested in.
A poem for the new year by Reader poetry editor Joseph O’Brien
“Valediction Forbidding Nostalgia: New Year’s Eve”
A poem for the new year by Reader poetry editor Joseph O’Brien
“Valediction Forbidding Nostalgia: New Year’s Eve”
For Cecilia
It’s a party like any other
We’ve ever been wallpapered and rugged
Into — the food and drink disarrayed, the bother
And mess left behind in the hosts’ kitchen
For tomorrow and tomorrow and, well, later tomorrow.
After dinner, the guests began to re-mingle,
Become further watered and drugged
By nostalgia as strong as the champagne
And steep wines timed to release all our sorrow.
The married cluster apart from the single
And standing between, Janus
And I, reflecting a window between us,
The end of December and a year.
The sun closes down early behind the darkness
In the large French doors that bless
Our hosts’ ravaged entrées.
In my leaning length, I am standing there
And my full reflection embarrasses me.
I look away but not before spying
Your pretty, conversational face
Engaged with a friend in pleasantry.
Lustrous with solemnity’s finesse.
I pretend to be chasing after you (you lying
On the bed of my brow in age
And bounty), that you are a new conquest,
And I sidle up in mock-false courage
To ask our friend your name.
You roll your eyes at the jest
And stop short of a chuckle
Before returning to the same
Conversation you were having with our friend
At some point between midnight’s middle
And year’s end.
The bells on television count off,
Refresh in a strange way,
Satisfy the bones, the blood, the flesh enough –
A rush of time, a new year, new month, another day….
Then for a moment, real terror –
The thought crosses my mind, a soft buzzing,
Like a computer coughing up an error,
The eyes go blurry, fuzzing
Around the edges
Like the translucent albumen
In a pan
Beginning to cook
White toward the yolk.
What if my life,
More than a practical joke,
Was a series of walks along the ledges
(I can’t help with each step to shake myself and look)
Of high buildings, all the windows locked?
Would I be as shocked
To discover that you were not really my wife?
But it dawns on me that you must
Be my wife — memory is one sign
That these years have not been in vain —
And the other? The thin frigid gust
That, nudging aside the curtain,
Squeezes through the cracked seal of a windowpane.
Yes, you too, winter — please, please, come in.
Take shelter from this year’s last night sky.
Why,
Not even January is as certain.
Joseph O'Brien
Joseph O’Brien is poetry editor of The San Diego Reader.
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