New Year’s Day

I miss the glass stars
we hung in the kitchen window
at Christmas time,

blue, orange, red,
the big one in the middle
with the candle.

Light of the old year
gone, candlewick spent.
Decorations and ornaments
put away the last few days
of December

stripping the old year bare,
back to its unadorned state.
The holidays are like dresses,
fancy, glamorous, long and
covering. Fireworks that
illumine what—the year
going or the one coming?

We won’t know until this
December 31, when the same window stars
have come and gone
once more

and this year’s white wax
is spent.