IF YOUR BIRTHDAY IS TODAY

you are a year older
and well into a cycle which began
with the alignment of Venus and Mars
in your seventh house
which is mortgaged
to the Daylight Savings & Loan Assoc.

Expect your days to accumulate
like old newspapers full of bad news,
to come back canceled checks,
to lie swollen like the pages of a book
left out in the rain.

Stay away from friends, partners; avoid
telephones, since their ringing starts
dozens of memoranda fluttering
in your stomach, like birds
roused out of sleep.

This is no time for a change, keep
wearing those same old dirty socks.
If opportunity knocks, say
you gave at the office.

from The Mountains Have Come Closer, 1980 ©

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