we make midnight a maquette of the year:
frostlight glinting off snow to solemnize
        the vows we offer to ourselves in near
silence: the competition shimmerwise

        of champagne and chandeliers to attract
laughter and cheers: the glow from the fireplace
        reflecting the burning intra-red pact
between beloveds: we cosset the space

        of a fey hour, anxious gods molding our
hoped-for adams with this temporal clay:
        each of us edacious for shining or
rash enough to think sacrifice will stay

        this fugacious time: while stillness suspends
vitality in balance, as passions
        struggle with passions for sway, the mind wends
towards what’s to come: a callithump of fashions,

        ersatz smiles, crowded days: a bloodless cut
that severs soul from bone: a long aching
        quiet in which we will hear nothing but
the clean crack of our promises breaking.

Copyright Credit: Evie Shockley, “on new year’s eve” from the new black. Copyright © 2012 by Evie Shockley. Used with the permission of Wesleyan University Press.