“Can you feel the year changing?”

January 1st, and my fingers have gone blue

Holding hands at a street party at 00:02

And we’re praying for a thaw, huddled in each other’s coats

Waiting for a signal to go out into the world

And make it ours while we still can,

Before our youth has burnt away.

I kissed you in a February dream and

Watched the steam rise from your mouth

As we drew our lips apart.

Now it’s mid-March and I’m watching the

Hairs hop up on the back of your neck.

There’s a slight chill in the air

(But it doesn’t matter when you’re there).

And we’re shouting ‘Bring on the summer!’

At the very tops of our young lungs

As April teases us with sun-drenched rain and rain-drenched
sun.

By May we’re certain spring has sprung –

It reverberates in the fluffy heads of dandelions

And tickles the new yellow flocks of flowers in the fields.

Then suddenly, before we know a month has passed,

Summer explodes, and I’m laying on my back

On the soft June grass tracing lines around the freckles of your
arms

And the sun is streaming down on me

Absorbing me, absolving me.

I turn to you in the heavy sky of July

And press your body closer into mine

So we can both lie down, and watch the lazy battles of the clouds

Among the golden heads of daisies that now decorate the ground.

August knocked me flat; the Earth was screaming out for rain

While you were screaming out my name

And we were happy once again.

Soon it was September, and the autumn was approaching

Like a fuzzy brown blur on the warm horizon.

The trees danced with colour, then shed their crinkled skin

And soon October came and the wet soil took back its fallen kin.

Winter threatened, frozen-fingered, but I knew

That all I had to do was just keep holding onto you;

And November and December passed us by without a scratch.

We closed the door of the summerhouse, with a blanket and a
radiator.

All night through the soft music of the season played

And we snuggled under covers; felt that nothing, nobody, could touch us.

Then it was morning, with January sliding back the latch

And I let him in, and had to let you go.