on new year’s eve

  we make midnight a maquette of the year:
frostlight glinting off snow to solemnize
  the vows we offer to ourselves in near
silence: the competition shimmerwise
 
  of champagne and chandeliers to attract
laughter and cheers: the glow from the fireplace
  reflecting the burning intra-red pact
between beloveds: we cosset the space
 
  of a fey hour, anxious gods molding our
hoped-for adams with this temporal clay:
  each of us edacious for shining or
rash enough to think sacrifice will stay
 
  this fugacious time: while stillness suspends
vitality in balance, as passions
  struggle with passions for sway, the mind wends
towards what’s to come: a callithump of fashions,
 
  ersatz smiles, crowded days: a bloodless cut
that severs soul from bone: a long aching
  quiet in which we will hear nothing but
the clean crack of our promises breaking.