On New Year’s Eve, we play Barbie
Queen of the Prom waiting for our longitude’s

countdowns. Pass home, collect allowance.
Pick a date, a job, an extracurricular.

It’s 1961 and you have to go steady
for it to be real. You pick Poindexter hoping to

make him a better man, even when you keep
landing on the same spaces. A time loop

around the prom entrance. Roll a two, hem drops.
Return to your father’s car & fix it. Sarah wins

second place in a limerick contest. We pass home
and eat deconstructed cannoli in my mother’s kitchen.

Pass home, earn an extra dollar. You lose a turn
because your boyfriend is late. Another city

catches up. Down Fell’s Point, boys buy roses
outside the Rum Bar for girls with glitter crowns,

numbers attached to their eyes. The corner where
we took a ride from strangers. A bar named Bar

huddled in a side street. Cinnamon whiskey. The
soda fountain. Sweet shop. Another dollar.

I remember our first midnight, before
we knew we’d come back.