“Wow, these are a booger!
I think they hired a bunch of three-year-olds…”
He is untwining Christmas lights
from a box.
I did not put them away last year.
They are new.
They do not come
with recrimination and scolding—
marriage’s brooding,
Gordian cloud that likes to
lingering just outside
in December’s early gloom—
set to Frank Sinatra’s classic
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
And then he exits the room
on swift, thin legs
that bounce and
I hear him start to sweep up
the pine needles
our new tree glittered over
the kitchen floor and
I stay very still,
sipping my cooled Glühwein
in a holiday mug.