NEW YEAR’S

I resolve to get a handle on my

personal matters, including my weight

which I will increase this year

with the Krispy Kreme diet which

all the celebrities are trying out, ballooning

up in Malibu so they can float

like fat kites above the beach.

And money—I will spend it all

without worry, down to the last cent,

the final zero on the bank statement.

Then, I’ll borrow to go to the movies,

buy that 40-foot mobile home, the boat,

buy the spare boat for those days

in the summer when I don’t

want to use the regular boat.

And smoking—I’m going to switch

to Gauloises or Players’ Cuts or

Camel Straights.  I have not been

smoking enough, and I spend

too much time between cigarettes.

This year, I will light them

one from another and be in a cloud

of beautiful blue smoke from Winter

into Spring when all the buds come out,

right through Summer and Fall

when we used to burn the leaves

in the gutters, and we thought of

those ceremonial deaths with the souls

rising like incense to the blue sky.

This year, whenever I think of doing

something nice, think of buying flowers

for my wife or a little china tea set

for my daughters or a Hank Aaron

baseball card for my son, something

I know they will like, I’ll think

better of it and buy something for myself,

Something to go with the spare boat—

a depth finder—so I can watch the school

of fish below in a sonar cluster, the way

the Northern Pike looks like a bold dash

on the screen, and I will be so

happy floating on the choppy lake,

alone with myself, fat and content,

smoking, might as well have a beer

or one of those little airline bottles

of Crème de Menthe, tasting like cough

syrup, so I shake my head

as if to clear my mind, but my mind

cannot be cleared of the daily thought,

the constant belief that I’m having

the year of my life, the abandoned year,

the careless year, the one that can’t be

touched, the year that must generate

all those new and hopeful resolutions.