Three Poems – Matt Gano

A DIFFERENT COUNTDOWN (first appeared in City Arts Magazine Dec. ’14)

We’re standing in the fog and it’s too thick to see the fireworks from this side of town. 
From this side of town the sky is just a flickering swamp. We’re all celebrating midnight 
and everyone here is who they came to be. People are stumbling in the street like loose  
leaf paper, kissing on the mouth, stopping traffic, trumpets marching out of yesterday 
and I’m holding Lauren’s hand. She won’t tell me until the middle of March that she is 
leaving for Chicago in May; that she loves me and it’s permanent. I’ll pretend I’m going 
to be fine. Next year will be a different countdown. Somewhere another couple same as us, 
is floating around in the dark, cheering on the future for the last time without really 
knowing it. Somewhere everything is new and will feel the same as it was before. 
Just over there, the fireworks are lighting up the sky.