Tonight's Poet Corner: 20??

20??

by Belinda Roddie

blissfully unaware

of the passage of time,

the New Year slept in, and

every clock was wrong, its

hands splayed helplessly

in front of each cracked face.

it could have been 2020. it

could have been 2019. 2021,

2031, 2342. could have been

1842 again, for all we knew, if

we had focused on another historical

figure's birthday instead of Jesus's.

regardless, it had an effect on us.

we forgot how old we were,

how long it had been since

we had met, and when our

next meeting would take place.

so I crept by your house at

a quarter past whatever with

a carton of egg nog and a bottle

of brandy because fuck the fact

that Christmas was over. It may

as well have been Christmas again,

given the shredding

of the calendar and the comatose

state of our arbitrary calculations

of the planet's revolution. may

as well toast to a personal,

useless revolution of our own -

to ignore the countdown entirely.