Christmas With Parenthetical Girls

A CHRISTMAS MEMORY

And when they found you on your back
All cradled in the snow
You looked as though
You could sleep forever

And when they found you on your back
All grinning in the cold
And skin so bright
Stained with blue and white

In the neighborhood where you were raised
And you wasted all those days
Body deep in snow banks

A Christmas night like any other night
Foggy eyes wide and alive
Watching snowflakes sheet the sky

And when they found you on your back
Lips cracking in sun
Marks of the night
That took your life

And when they found you on your back
Alone out in the cold
Limbs stretched to show
An angel formed below

[Indistinguishable]

HERE’S TO NOSTALGIA

Winter nights
Cast in five-watt lights
Remind of a time
When I called you mine

Now you’ve got your life
And I’ve got mine
And I guess that’s fine

All these Christmas nights
Drenched in blue and white
They all blur in time

Memories decline
I know I’ve lost mine
And that’s just fine

Left with loose outlines
Of a Christmas time
In another life
Hands across the night
Until we said goodbye
And that’s just fine

WAIT ANOTHER YEAR

Christmas comes just once a year
Raise your weary voice in cheer
Merry hearts find ways to sing
Glory, Hark, and Joy, Our King

Clear and sure the church bells ring
Through the streets, they’re beckoning
Brash and bright and insincere
Christmas comes but once a year

Wait for the day
and when it came
Nothing changed
This holiday
We’ll file away
A year in vain
And wait for next year