“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.