New Year’s 1960 - Sandra Anfang

[Larry Robinson]

New Year’s 1960

 
I’d change into pajamas long before dark

to speed the celebration.

Four sisters huddled around the Magnavox

eyes on Times Square,

the promise of tickertape

cocooned in its casing.

 
In the fridge a platter of deli 

sandwiches we called Sloppy Joes,

the thrill of yellow crinkled plastic

Dad called excelsior.

The giant hood—a see-through shower cap;

the crackle when I’d sneak a Gherkin.

 
My parents would light for a minute in the doorway

like luminous moths

Mom in her bouffant helmet

Dad looking sheepish in a bow tie and tux

a tendril of Chanel Number 5

Her scented calling card.

 
In the den excitement bloomed

for resolutions not yet written nor even dreamed 

how the new year might bring calmer dinners

a balm to sooth my mother’s ire

weaken the Louisville Slugger

of her right arm.

 
Could it whisk away 

the kindly piano teacher

who reeked of Aqua Velva

or the torment of daily practice?

Would it resurrect the jumping pony

whose velvet flank I lived for all week long?

 
We’d keep each other awake

with sugared visions

each in her own ellipse

‘til Guy Lombardo lowered the mirrored ball

and we would scream, jump on couches, 

whack each other with pillows.

 
Soon my parents would reappear

Dad a little tipsy, the only time I saw him like that

the enormity of the question this image raised

the impossible hope

that the new year could bring some kind of ease

some chink in the armor, no matter how slight.


	- Sandra Anfang
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