Questions on a New Years' Day

It’s one day closer to death, the song goes. Of course,

it’s equally true we’re one day closer

to the next part of our life.

But what manner of life will it be?

A plod from soup kitchen to unwadded tarp tied

horizontal between trees, trying to recreate

Mr. Blue Sky, a song from the better times

of your life which promised a cloudless future?

A hamster wheel hustle through routines

sweat-scented more with resignment than ambition,

a dogged pall bearer at the arm

of your marriage, your career, your parenting

journey, each sunbreak not the fists of clouds

going palm-open, each deluge not a waterfall

of cold crow’s wings; just more rotations

of a sawdusty wheel in which you can’t help but run?

What manner of life is this next day to be?

Trepid, in time with an old song, you set foot

into the salvage yard morning of the new day.

The moments bid you come and round

the bends of blackberry snarl, horned

and bitter as cuckolded husbands

and minotaurs, bearing dark treasures,

glistening sweet enough to succor you.