New Year's Eve

New year's eve.
The drizzle
has filled up
the gutters.
Firecrackers
are all wet
for bursting,
no sparkles
to garden
our front lawn.

The kitchen
is in great
dire state of
disrepair.
The worn sink
is molding
where the white
dry cement
used to fill.
We do with
the measly
morsels we
preciously
have cooked for
our pleasure.

In his room,
Papa's cough
is our sole
noisemaker
in the house
to ward off
the past year's
odious ghosts.
He tries hard
to be man
of the house
one more time
with what's left
of spaces
in his lungs,
energy
to heave from
his belly
all his last
convincing,
fatherly
final boom.

Jom and Mei
keep themselves
in the room
recalling
past new years
were better
than this one.

My brothers,
we blow out
those trumpets,
wake what new
tales will come
breezing through
our small house,
but our house
tells us now
that it's tired,
waiting which
old stories
are ready
to be shelved.
It has lost
some hopeful
perspectives
this first step
of the year
while the sky
is keeping
behind deep
mats of clouds
all its stars.