With his arm

around

the Happy New Year

rumbling

out of the picture

divorced from sleep

no more parties

or if so

please clarify by letter

on Wednesday

before

our contemporary Friday

becomes

quite out of it

during a friendly warming

Technicolor punch-drunk

holding tight to an old impulse

like

time is a word…used for good

even when you knew

it wasn’t

and

we concluded

with sundry things

and

now we know

just how fickle

the word gentle can be

temporarily…anyway

I relate

change the ribbon

cough

and self-inflict another day.