In the last remaining minutes of the year I tiptoe
from the party and out the back door
to breathe in what is left and what will soon be gone,
to salvage some small silence before the corks pop
and the sky burns with crackling rain.
This would be the perfect moment for a cigarette
if I hadn’t decided now was the time to kick the habit.
So I turn to my old habit of eavesdropping – listening
to gossip in the undertones of dark hours.
The winter wind rustles the remains of a magnolia tree.
The neighbor’s cat comes out of hiding to moan at the moon.
A red eye flight drones off into the West.
What if this new year is a mirror of
the 12 months that came before?
We will still have stillness
where we can find it.
There will still be quiet before midnight bells.
Still the soft hum of neon signs and bus lines.
The echo of champagne laughter from kitchen windows
celebrating what still is,
the people we love, still here.
James J. Siegel is a Pushcart-nominated poet and author of the poetry collections The God of San Francisco (Sibling Rivalry Press) and How Ghosts Travel. He is the host and curator of the monthly Literary Speakeasy show at Martuni’s piano bar in San Francisco, which has been running for over 10 years. His poems have been featured in several journals and anthologies, including Foglifter, the Cortland Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and more.
Photo, “End of Day Hue,” taken by Jilli Penner