Birth and Rebirth and Rebirth

For all the geology of seawater, for all
the time in clay, I am grateful
for a new year. “New” because we say
so. Behold Janus’s two faces.
See how she closes one door in order
to open another. A cracked vessel
blessed my face with water you read
as tears. A fire sewed smoke
into my clothes. The firemen hacked
open the door. For a year I smelled of tar,
like the La Brea monster bird who dreamed
the tar pit as a lake, who tasted
rainwater atop ancient pools of crude, then sank.
Except, I quit the house and the broken
door, and I left the man enmeshed
in December, and the firemen
with their hoses, and the water running
like steps down the stairs. Here,
I spill into January. I shatter
the cracked china because its value
is precisely in its uselessness.
I dust the fossil, the headstone,
and the oyster shell. Stars sprawl
across my shoulders as the moon bears
its wearied repetitions. Still,
there are so many firsts to be had.