31 December 11:59pm, or The Devil in a Box

You told me you

were born a

minute too soon;

that although it’s but a wink

of allotted time,

it wreaks its own havoc that

the rest of us can hardly

comprehend:

Applauding before the

rondo lands its close.

Divulging the footman did it 

before anyone has a clue.

Even Poirot

had scratched his head.

You sprung up from your seat

like a diable en boîte—

60 nervous seconds

before the puck had hit

the twine. The crowd around

you figured you were mad,

though you were proven right

once the siren flashed its

whirling, carmine light.

You were unerring on

everything—

solving Wheel of Fortune

before the initial letter’s ping.

Spoiling from the get-go

our charades—

while a person read their

card; cerebrated gestures.

Your mother & her doctor

tried to hold you back a bit—

envisioned your beaming visage

in the paper—first one born

in the cheer of Auld Lang Syne.

You warned us of tsunami

on the beach in Myanmar,

during a calm as still as

slumber. Made a traffic turn

just moments before a

sinkhole gobbled the ground—

sandwiched by two taxis which were

preordained to plunge.

The selling of your stocks

before the clang of the

closing bell.

We wondered on your luck,

your talismanic aura;

asked to see your clovers

or the toes of a hapless hare.

The gift of one’s good fortune

comes at the cost of

innocence. The flip

of a fractured mirror,

the slit on a child’s wrist.

The dance of an Irish

jig beneath the ladder;

a painter who will plummet

to his death.

Over by the carrots

you will wrest, a rabbit tries to

hop on one less leg; six more

like her somewhere

in your garden—

just lagging behind your

tugs by a single leap.

Andreas Gripp

March 21, 2026

andzhey / iStock