New Year’s Eve

By Martha Deed

New Year's Eve

What can this new year say for itself?
It rises as a doomed baby
in the midst of fire, flood and war
and a death that did not make it
into the new year
death alone

addiction too beguiling
to surmount
malevolent death

he was a favorite son
as all his sons
were favorite sons

the new year
already shadowed

Photo by Andreas Dress