Año Viejo
In Guayaquil, in December,
the old year is a dying man,
face painted on a paper-mâché head,
dressed in yesterday’s clothes,
stuffed with newsprint emblazoned
with headlines from the past year.
His widows— we cry for him on the corners
taking up a collection for his funeral.
We spend it on fireworks
to stuff down his shirt
so he burns bright when we light
him on fire, minutes before midnight.
But first, his last will and testament is read
bequeathing blessings for the year ahead.
His final countdown explodes
in the middle of every street
and the city is a battlefield, ablaze,
the new year brought forth through the haze.
Our eyes full of smoke
we raise a champagne toast: we embrace
in silence and watch our old man burn.
by Lupita Eyde-Tucker.
“Año Viejo” was first published in Naugatuck River Review, Issue 18, Fall 2017, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Etienne Le Cocq [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Lupita Eyde-Tucker is a bilingual poet and translator raised in New Jersey and Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is the winner of the 2021 Unbound Book Festival Emerging Poet Award, the 2019 Betty Gabehart Prize, and in 2018 was selected as an AWP Writer to Writer Mentee by poet Maggie Smith. In 2022 her poetry manuscript, "Eucalyptus," was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Prize from Letras Latinas. The manuscript explores her Sephardic Jewish ancestry and bi-cultural heritage.
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