When a Year Starts Three Days Late,

I go out to dinner with Cathleen.
We’re both in our dotage, so-called.
She will live to be a hundred.
If I’m lucky, I’ll be back tomorrow.

Tomorrow was the fourth day of a year
that began with Don Quixote.
You must admire the old gent’s pluck,
his remorseless fight for justice.

On the second day I read Shakespeare
and marveled at Chimes at Midnight.
The third day ended in the dark,
where I dedicated these words to you;

then went to ground, where tremors are,
defying indefatigable odds.

(3 January 2014)

copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander