New Year Ritual
After you toast the new year with confetti, wine and shout,
assemble broom and sponge and mop to wash the old year out.
Let it know it’s finished. Make it abrogate that power
officially surrendered when clocks struck the midnight hour.
The most practical among you might find this act absurd,
but please suspend your disbelief and take me at my word.
What’s acted out in metaphor declares a second time
what was announced at midnight by the bell tower’s final chime.
Prompt words today are broom, sponge, absurd, abrogate and finish.
