poem a day

 on new year’s day

seventeen years ago
I sat at Vanessa’s on Eldridge
on a first date with murphy 
somehow never having had dumplings before

fresh off a dance class high 
i told him about a new project starting that day
of close friends
former flame friends
loose acquaintances
my estranged father
my step-father’s deranged son-in-law
and strangers from craigslist 

—lewpeterla! mindyfromthebronx!—
would write and email poems every day for a month

no way i could have peered 

into the future to see the yearly hearths unfolding
this year i’ve been at arms reach
a rare feeling of not wanting to do something
just for the sake of it
like my former mid morning shaky wild hunger
which has slunk out of the room
leaving me with that foreign feeling
of needing to remind myself to eat
i’m still at the party

sitting towards the edge on a bar stool

with my back against the wall

all wrapped up in the warmth

of bubbling talk

the reverie

of knowing other people are alive

dear friends

former flame friends

close acquaintances

strangers i’ve never met