Under lights
strung taut across unthawed lots,
we brought our
tragedies, ribboned in red.
It’s the happiest season, they said.
So
we flooded the lines among aisles of pine.
But
as funds dried up, we paid with our quilts.
Then
lowering heads down fog-full streets,
we
dragged home firs, trailing boughs at our feet.
Seeking heat we cooked trunks in barrels of rust
which
turned ruby the throats of the lonely among us,
cheeks
bursting blood in a fiery flush.
If
our flesh were scalded raw,
if
blood dripped thin along our fists,
who
would ash our decay once our souls flew away?
.
