Where is the girl in the black dress, Y2K ecstasy in her eyes on the Lower East Side? Where is the lady standing frozen in boots that night, long ago on Inis Mór, where a boy and his father sang in lumbering loops With or Without You amongst a tearful bar crowd? Here she is, healthy, save for a crunchy knee cap and a restless lobe. She dreams inside flying only once a year. She runs and runs and barely makes it off the ground. It’s more of a float than a fly. The veins in her hands are more prominent, white hairs spiral up in the mirror. She thinks about the muscles in her abdomen. How tall she sits in front of a computer screen. She hopes her neighbors are warm enough in their beds. She wants there to be an place inside for everyone to sleep when it’s cold outside. She hopes the men of the world can learn to cry. She considers her stance as a capitalist. She considers trading bowls of curry for high fives. She considers the meaning of art. She sends a smoke signal to the Congo. She waves a white flag on the rooftops of American prisons. Her daughter plays with blocks on the floor. Her daughter doesn’t want to go to the forest today to be washed by trees. Her daughter insists on keeping monsters out with a chain tied to a door knob. She may want to bounce a quarter off your ass. Two Thousand Sixteen is a series of days beginning now, question marks everywhere, except here in my chair. I am not making plans to be a better human this year because plans shift and whirl about in the ether. So instead I’ll attempt to be a better human in this chair at 10:55 am. It swivels and squeaks. It pulls me backwards and yawns my spine. Good Morning I say. This coffee is delicious. This coffee came from the cherry picked hands of several humans in Batavia. This coffee fills my navel passages and coats the back of my throat. The sound of these keys. The itch on the bottom of my foot. The text message my sister just sent me. “What a fuckin’ asshole.” My mom’s grief. The neighbor’s wind chimes. Happy New Year.
