Urban Myths and Mich Lights

She told me dozens of times, the colored yarn twined between her fingers, crochet hook zipping up and down...."How you bring in the New Year is how you spend the year"....fingers flying, eyes down.

I laughed.

Smudged out another cigarette, and told more stories.

She meant it.

I brought it in upside down, sideways, sound asleep. I burned up the old year, sent it ashes to ashes into the wind in the middle of the tiny paved street. I buried it in the back yard, stuffed it in a suitcase and set it out for the garbage man. I danced to Stones. Danced with fossils. Danced by myself. I made resolutions, promises, threats to an empty sky. I cha-chinged it, cheered it, clinked it, feared it. I tried it everyway but right.

And then I put on my cowboy boots and that damned dress I had to have and sashayed it right in through the kitchen door...

Sometimes you've gotta put on your kickers to get that dust off of your petticoat....