December Poem 2: The Flattened Shadows

Life on a black Monday extended as

To kill all the light in the house. Shaking

Out the man’s hands and god’s to hold loose their

Gaze, I find myself balanced on this blind

Woman’s grip of existence. The black and

White echoes of where things might be. Confound

These frozen nights frosted with angry dogs

Barking at the flattened shadow of things

Hidden only in the deep dark rising

Fast from the drunken steam of your own breath.

December Poem 1: Who Cares for a White Christmas?

With each drop of snow, the bough would straighten

A little closer to its former height

In short increments like the stiff back of

An old peddler who had just let down his

 

Pack. And the sun reflected like shaved glass

Off the boughs heavy with snow that broke loose

In the field of white to unwrap more green

And to fall in clumps like comets followed

 

By a tail of drifting powder. The green

Struggling to hold to life in the frozen

Desert of white. Life more beautiful and

Mysterious, the evergreens had a

 

Natural giftwrap decorated to

Rival the pale imitation held so

Proudly decapitated in my home

Rooted in piles of consumer goods.