Celebration Poem by Tara Teeling

The late December sky confuses its followers,
duping them with a froth of violet quartz
and seeping slivers of melon before reeling back the light,
leaving the bedazzled to grope frantically as
the cold comes to own their invisible skin.

With the finale of another year comes
the finish of trying births and deaths,
tired themes waved away by drunken hands.
The failures and fatalities are left behind in
a scattering of days on lustrous paper,
like the worst is over and surviving it
was all they had to do.

Swift realizations come with the gong of the clock:
less references about eternal beauty and
an emphasis on the virtue of personality;
a collective determination to find faith in conviction,
gifted perfume masking the stink of submission.

The clothes are comfortable; black and elastic,
with careful positioning which works to hide
the other sleeping Decembers.
No one is looking at the slow-splitting cracks
and waterless tributaries which snake
the eyes and mouths; it is better to sip the drink slowly,
so as to ease the horror, bringing civility to it.

Tabletop candles are lit for mood,
they’re there for romance and tribute, but
the rolling, clotting wax and the lessening wick
are unnerving reminders of their slow passing.
They flare, flicker and plead before their
spirit curls toward the heavens,
taking the atmosphere along with them.

There is no reference to the fear of what is coming,
only the well-intentioned crash of cheap glasses
and the spill of drink on the carpet.

Which everyone tries to clean up,
as if it were blood,
as if it were going to save them.