—for Arlyn Nucos and Abigail Leste

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Fortune enters by an open door. Unlatched,
a window brings a double blessing, as joy leftover
spills surely into a neighbour’s soil. Debts
unpaid at midnight will always last the year,
while pockets, filled with coins, will never empty
unless leaving from one threshold to another, one
neglects to take a gift: the curse of plenty.
When choosing a new abode, it should be seen
that the stairs fall in pairs (not in threes), the better
to avoid that third unlucky element
that comes with ‘gold’ and ‘silver’. What follows after
must not be named; no, not ever written—
even on this last Lord’s day of the going year
as another decade shuffles at the gate
still far from home, and already getting older.
No envelope was made to hold its weight.