January

January

January often arrives like an unwelcome guest — cold, broke, and full of expectations. This poem imagines him sitting down anyway.

There’s a year in new swing,

grimly doing our thing.

He straggles in with his old muddy boots,

sits square in my favourite soft chair.

Hands ice-cold — truth be told —

eyes sadly red-rimmed.

Sometimes cheeky, sometimes perky,

relentlessly debonair.

There’s a draught at the window,

frosty windowpanes for all to see.

The desperate follow-up to a festive climax:

ragged pockets, ripped and empty,

a grey, fading pinstripe suit.

And on his lips, a plea:

“Well, love me or loathe me,

I prop up the year.

Your resolutions are the problem, I say…

Celebrate me — a wintry gateway

to New Year hopes and dreams,

hopes and loves.

I prop the door,

hold the light a little longer.

Love me or loathe me, I’m here —

and so are you.”