New Year’s Wishes

Fortunately for me
there’s a New Year’s calendar
slipped under my door
at the Lucky Jade Hotel Asia.
Fortunately for me
…in red
…it says:
“PROSPERITY” and “ABUNDENCE”
and fortunately for me
…some days are noted
…as “lucky.”
Fortunately, I say,
as last year’s days
…rushed at me,
wild beasts
…trampling my
best foot forward.
As the days erupted,
my perfect plans got scattered
all round
…staining the landscape
of the year.
The days would bleed
into nights
……. and on to other days
till I was pressed flat,
….a gnat flush against the
wall of the solar system,
and the Universe had me sold that
it would be just as happy to
….snuff me out.
Now we’re creeping on to another new dawn—
and a new year.

But no, below there’s a mob
in the streets:
the taillights,
a silent statement,
the sentiment, the voice of the people—
voting against bad luck
…by simply going
…home.
No one ever mourned a bank account.
In prosperity or meagerness
in work or in rest,
do I cherish too little what I really need?
…My lean soul
feeds on the beauty of love.
I flip the calendar
into its
unlucky bin.

-A Charity Johnson