On the second day of 2016,
I can hear the new year shuffling on the porch,
a new postman on an unfamiliar route,
unsure where to lay
the oversized packages.

I sip my warmish coffee,
listening to the new year fumble tinnily
now with my battered blue postbox.
He might welcome some instruction.
He might welcome a welcome.

I might have welcomed these too, once.

In 2015 I might have dared to open the door.
I might have introduced myself, with my signature
head duck to a bob to a once-fetching tilt,
with the usual apology in my eyes
for the screen door's consolation prize:
yes, sorry, only this, only me,
only a woman of a certain age
(read: not his)
with wet eyes liquid soul wobbling breasts the yearning
sloshing onto the toes of his newly issued uniform shoes.

In 2015, I might have warned the new year that
the dogs will always bark. I might have counseled him
to leave the awkward pieces of mail on the
wide-hipped seats of the red plastic Adirondack chairs.
I might have told him not to fear his first day
(although how I hate the first day of anything)
and let him know that, sometimes, my daughters bake.

Now I refuse to open the door to him. Too soon.
It's nothing personal, newest new year.
He is welcome as far as my porch—as far as the doormat.
Let him, thumping, unseen 2016, deliver as he may.
What do I know, after all, about his job?
Let me, steely now, sit quietly. Let me offer no apology for being.

No year is at fault for what it delivers. No need to
shoot the messenger; no need to interfere.
What will come will come, never when expected,
and thus,
just as expected.

Jennifer Mattern