Five days after Christmas
we are weary of the tree.
Stale joy, a half-grown puppy.
No one waters it
or admires the lights;
the sharp spruce needles
drop onto the tree skirt,
through the holy chamber
the presents occupied, empty now,
things eaten and broken and read,
Christmas past. The ornaments,
gaudy and plain, are folded and stacked,
and the tree stands as it once did,
but dead. It’s lovely anyway by itself,
like an empty house. Walking through
you notice wall shadows, door handles,
the hall floor like a river of oak,
and the windows, what is free to go out
and what is admitted at each pane of glass.
You notice your noisy shoes
and your enthusiastic, unnatural voice.
We own too much.
I am cleaning the old man’s house.
Nothing of value. In the attic
boxes of Christmas decorations
the heirs do not wish to examine:
“Give it all to the poor.”
Umbrellas lean in the corners,
the closets an impenetrable mass
of worthless retainees, the squalid pantry,
the predictably unclean bath —
but in the basement, jars of screws
arranged like a surgeon’s tray
and a magnificent shortwave,
his audio window. Toward the end
the eyes always do fail.
We admire the tree anew, for one moment,
before dragging it into the snow.
Bitter cold is the forecast, dangerous windchills,
one hundred percent chance of snow.
The tree will not suffer.
Wind will build a drift
over its northern branches, a pale, cold wall
rising, with little windows on the east.
Some creature may fly through these windows
which are always left open.
And here in the corner where the tree stood,
a chair, a lamp, a wastebasket.