New Year’s Day, Alone

What, loneliness? Well, the checkerboard 
butterflies I like the most are mostly dead. 
The sun, I’ve seen it rise for a month straight
from the wrong coast, and the light 
at that hour tends less toward the pastel
panes of stained glass than the leading
between them. Back East, way back when, I’d look 
at those windows for so long the crick in my neck 
hung around all day, and so I’d twiddle 
my thumbs in the close quiet and sit and think 
about what sort of animal is born yoked 
to shadow. I set out early, and the obsidian 
flows would’ve shredded the soft rubber soles 
of my shoes, had I gotten that far, had the weather 
been milder. That’s what I most wanted 
for this year, a few minutes to stand 
smack-dab in the middle of a frozen lake 
of lava in the middle of nowhere. Maybe next year.