Closing on midnight,
only the golden hum
of extra generators descended.
The new century would be here,
a mirror hanging by a latched door.
After the party I ate peanuts in the hotel room,
even when across the water
fireworks plumed.
Maybe it was a song in my head
or the drinks when they asked me
to finish the night at the river's edge.
God would come, they said.
I folded the blanket over my neck,
and, from four stories up, watched
them mix dresses and ties in sand,
sing with the fizzing stars.
Pressed as one near the reed bed,
they were a sleeping thigh,
and the waves that reached them,
a swan's jowl.

William Auten