New Year's Eve

Rooted in New Zealand soil
Caroline Bay en fête -beach- fires,
sweating crowds, summer shirts
spiralling to midnight,
finally bursting the seams
with well-timed fireworks.

Then barefoot on the dunes-
dancing and caution abandoned,
music urging and stroking us
with its rhythms - lithe, brown snakes
swaying in tandem,
hypnotically entwined.

Away from beery cheers
and crude rugby songs,
breaking New Year resolutions
at the instant on tussock grass,
our oiled bodies free offerings
to him or her – beautiful gods.

At dawn, the let-down.
Dunes strewn with debris,
cans and condoms.
The tide turns, hesitates,
and then, indifferently,
washes in another year.