Teetering down 8am street on flimsy heels,
the last-night party sequins clinging
like spackled glitter to first-morning tatters,
passing among bodega owners sweeping out
the last night,
the first morning
broken spectacles and trampled hats
emblazoned with the digits of the new year,
monumental on last-night billboards
now first-morning dross, no more than
assigned numbers to be scrawled in
checks and forms for the next 365.
The first morning.
The last night.
Brash eleventh-hour promises —
trumpeted on paper horns and traffic jamming
with jazzed yelps from the intoxicated chorus
— now sounding mundane and frail
on the hiss of dawn’s cold blues.
The last night
and the first morning
— indistinguishable
in the storefront mirror looking back
over confetti-strewn sidewalks
from the parade
that is our continuum
year to year,
night’s same heavy shadows haunt day,
proving thin, used tissue wrapping,
like ash, floating on pale sunlight
no matter what was promised
or lost
on the last night
or the first morning.
seeing god naked 