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      December 31, 2022How to End a YearSamuel A. Betiku

      Your silhouette arched on the railing
      of the balcony takes stock of space and time,
      the world so far-flung and your eyes so far-
      reaching you mistake yourself for God,
      though your hands are full of holes, fault
       
      lines riddling the tract of a life you would
      gladly exchange for another. But now is not
      the time for penance but for the savor of grace
      in the air. The city alive at your feet, pulsing
       
      blend of sound and light, a wild stallion
      broken for you. How in the house the boombox
      breathes in tandem with the tangos of those
      you love, who beam like characters at the end
       
      of a fairy tale. Isn’t this lilting world shaped
      as an open door? You can walk through it
      and never come back. Overhead, the dusky sky
       
      bursts into a fit of colors, fire flowers blooming
      from an orchard of mirth, and a time flows
      into another like a dazzling river beckoning you
       
      to drink.

      from Poets Respond

      Samuel A. Betiku

      “During a class, a lecturer I greatly admire said: ‘It’s a dangerous thing to live in the past; don’t allow yourself to be left behind.’ This poem was the aftermath of the impression those words had on me.”