POEMS
Two Poems by Elizabeth Fenton
THE DAYS AFTER NEW YEAR
The need to drink becomes at times overwhelming-
1 can tell you this from my own experience.
There is nothing for it (January, after all)
but to project some movies onto the walls,
or look at the bottom of the beer glass-see if it's there.
Maybe it will be coming during the spring rains!
Surely-even without Mt. Fuji in the background–
it is possible to hear ahead of time the vibrations
of the geese and the wild ducks speeding northward
(though they may have only got things to the planning stage)
and to know that a kind of Brownian movement
will increase between us, between all of us now so hunched over.
But everything depends, of course, on the size of your stash:
how much hard cash you hold fixed in your several accounts,
knowing that the real message of the tinsel festivities
was: "I would if 1 could,
but.
Get yourself a regular income."
And you laughed and ate the roast, and leaned by the fire
with a sweet smile of gratitude and got thoroughly wasted.
That was the base camp before ascent of the mountain,
on which, if you go too slowly, you'll be left behind
