New Year’s Eve, now and then

Drinking sweet

Liquor rum

In my brain

Thinking of

Cuba and you,

Together. Why,

When you are

Here and now

And that was

There and then,

But somehow

Intertwined round

The same bend

Of year, this

February time

That should be

Winter and isn’t

Spring. This

Fuzzy hiatus

Before the year

Begins in earnest.

The Chinese got it

Right, ours was premature,

Christmas merriment

Still mulling

Recognition through

Old Lang Sine,

Sung too soon.

Febbraio en Cuba,

February in London;

Two thousand and nine,

Two thousand and ten.

Alone abroad,

At home, with men,

With you, maybe.

More at sea than

When the Malecon wall

Fenced me off from

Them, males with

Bright, tall sails

Bobbing, skidding, winking

Through the sun-hot sheen.

Now the year’s

Stacked up its freight.

Destined where?

No ship’s docked

Yet, while me,

A girl, a rum girl,

Waits.