My Happy Place

The New Year arrives at My Happy Place late in the afternoon
By postal motorboat.
We pick it from the splinters and debris in the churning surf,
And carry it up to the house;
"Welcome to My Happy Place," we tell it,
But it only stares fixedly, as if dead.

We put The New Year to bed in one of the guest rooms,
After taking away its shoe laces and belt.
At My Happy Place, we are always at the ready for visitors--
We keep soft restraints in a drawer,
And kindly old Doctor Bubo looks in, though we are never sure that he really understands
Us,
Our guests,
Or My Happy Place at all.

At twelve, The New Year steps out into the night
Near the cupola.
It uses its torn bed sheets to communicate by semaphore
With various monsters and suicides
Out in the deep.
We want to release a flock of doves from the lawn of My Happy Place,
But all that we have is a dead pigeon;
We toss it up into the gale, and it seems to fly for a moment
--noble creature!--
Before thumping listlessly against the bricks and then the ground.

Welcome, New Year, to My Happy Place!
Be mindful of our pitched and slippery roof;
Hold that rose firmly between your teeth,
While stretching out your arms like an aeroplane.
They say that
Birth and Death are less different than the same,
And that all the doors at My Happy Place
Open as easily outward
As in.
____


Happy New Year's, my second least favorite holiday after Independence Day.