So long cell tower dish sneaking in the bedroom window, so long to saying thank you to taxi doors held open, only to slide across sticky seats. So long to dragging our bodies into rooms where we don’t want to go, into arguments that aren’t our own. So long to keeping the shouting quiet to not wake the kids, to the long marriage, to friends who left town or the earth, the driver who cuts you off in traffic, and yells fuck you at the windshield. So long to war and worrying about my mother. So long Mom. And maple leaves fluttering up and painting the ground red with stars. So long to day-sleeping, to knobby knees on hardwood floors, to breathing and breaking and being broken, to waiting for something better, or worse, so long to being afraid, pissed off or hungry, to thinking I was lucky for so long.
New Year’s Day: Poetry by Cynthia Good – Second Place Winner of Solstice Contest
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