There’s no room left in this space, for the year is over, kaput, done did,
wrapped up, at the end of its rope, finito and well on its way home,
that’s all, there’s no more, nothing left to squeeze free, the wheel halts
and within two days, two hours, four minutes and sixteen seconds,
fifteen seconds, fourteen seconds, thirteen seconds, twelve, eleven,
we, the world, will claim death has taken another year, and we’ll
celebrate for sure, it’s a funeral unlike any other, we don’t even feel
guilty for our drinking, our debauchery, our spliffs lit up, haggard
smoke forms wilting in air so old from its travels it has come to be
a sweeping train of time, chugging gales and screeching wispy songs,
and whether the weather will be happy, angry, or ill, we’ll clap, we’ll
take long baths at midnight, write out bullet lists and sketch women
with tiny breasts, stare at the moon, light incense, smash bottles
and things will surely crack loud as lightning, and the burning of the
clock hand charging will sting a bit, but like a tattoo, we display the year
(soon sinking to the very bottom) with great reverence and complaint;
for it was ours, always is, something just for us, the gods’ personal
memo to us every waking, sleeping, liminal moment, this year, was
ours, and we performed our best and worst acts, fell out and in of
love, hijinks, purpose, plight, and all the likely stories we told, some
true, and some not, and those beaded, braided words and sentences
will surely follow us in some shape or way, and we may pretend
those tendril ghosts never were, but we know better, that they are
so much more than things that at one point had been alive. Hey,
let’s toast; our graves are here and far away, and we rode the wave
to the shore once again, and saw and did things, we’ll never again.