Quick, take a picture. Ben sent a disposable camera from Boston just a few days ago, so that I would take pictures of the new year for him. Don't know what it will look like, can't moor it, fixed unto a flat surface like the laminated map of Oakland I pinned to our bedroom wall, can't shape it into a glossy black faux-hawk like my hair right before work, bored with roaring twenties bobs in a pearl-less decade that's more nervous than insouciant and no, it can't be donned like black cowboy boots adorned with white hearts, no sirree, let the new year come but I'll keep my eyes closed, take the flick and mail the camera, photo unseen, don't want to know what the new year will look like for most likely it'll be shadows flitting across the sheet, the flash of teeth, something between laughter or despair, tender wounds in a light cracked by the desires, failures and hopes of millions.




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