happy new year

The oranges disappeared
in the famished rush of midnight.
the fragrance of their
flowery rind remains.
takes you back to warm afternoons
many winters ago, the picture of
a sweater knitting mother
sitting on the terrace
checking lengths of arms
and torsos every so often,
as you munched on peanuts
carefully mined from stubborn shells
that rose into quaint mountains
by the side of the bedspread
and indulged in the comfort
of bountiful laps filled with dreams.

A sneeze unexpectedly
breaks the reverie
and pushes a new agenda –
that picture - did that happen
or have we invented more pasts
for ourselves
than our journals and monochromatic
kodak pictures contained?

Soft snores from another room
separated by a wall blue as our nostalgia
declare that this would be
one more night of
uncertain memories of definite things
that the morning will shrug off its shoulders
like we dismiss deaths
in faraway cities tucked in
other continents.
distance can confound
your sense of reality
lulling you into the consequentaility
only of the immediate.

Meanwhile
citrus is the flavor of this last day of the year.
in its lingering zest,
the new year promises
many more scented yesterdays
that may or may not have happened.