New Year’s Eve
Midnight is a murderous
train. Soon it will steal
the last tracks of 2020,
so my husband borrows an ax
to chop our dead neighbor’s
discarded bookcase
into fuel for our fire.
We sit on camp chairs
around the fire pit
beside the backyard carriage house
that is just
black windows now.We sip the wine a little slower,
as though it were the blood
of Christ, and the moon
melts on our tongues
like a communion wafer.
The flames sew lace
across our skin
and we pull up our blankets of smoke.
All December
our neighbor’s tree glowed godlike
in his window’s altar.
New Year’s Eve by Sara Ries Dziekon | Poetry Reed Diffuser Set
Sara Ries Dziekonski was named Runner-Up in the Press 53 Poetry Award for her manuscript, Today’s Specials, which was released in September of 2024 as a Tom Lombardo Poetry Selection. She is a Buffalo native and holds an MFA in poetry from Chatham University. Her first book, Come In, We’re Open, won the 2009 Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition. Her chapbooks include Snow Angels on the Living Room Floor and Marrying Maracuyá, which won the Cathy Smith Bowers Chapbook Competition. Ries Dziekonski is the co-founder of Poetry Midwives Editing and Submission Services.
