I hate this entire year, the way it stops
and starts, dries you out, soaks you, lulls you
to sleep, then wakes you up in a cold sweat.
Not to mention the pills that are required
just to get through it. I’m on Tylenol
with codeine at this very moment.
It sees to it that the bills keep coming,
marked by obvious deceit. The dentist we despise
who keeps overcharging us, for example.
It is so objectionable, so unfair.
Where are the free lunches of yesteryear,
the Martinis, Manhattans, highballs
on the hotel terrace overlooking the magic
domes of the glittering city?
It was not like this in 1982, I can tell you that.
1982 let you smoke all the True Blues you wanted.
It said, go aheadhave fun! Eat giant hamburgers,
huge slices of cake, big platefuls of French fries.
Fuck all night, sleep late, call in sick. It told you
you had to listen to Van Morrison singing
“Cypress Avenue” over and over, all night long
till there was nothing left of it to inhale.
Terence Winch has published ten books of poems, the most recent being It Is As If Desire (Hanging Loose, 2024) and That Ship Has Sailed (Pitt Poetry Series, 2023). Winner of an American Book Award and the Columbia Book Award, he has also published two story collections and a novel. He is the guest editor for Best American Poetry 2025 and the editor of the Best American Poetry blog’s “Pick of the Week” feature. Winch is the recipient of an NEA poetry fellowship, a Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Writing, and multiple grants from DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities and the Maryland State Arts Council. Also a musician and songwriter, he co-founded the original Celtic Thunder, the traditional Irish music group.