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My skin, no longer youthful,
Glows and shimmers from the life we share.

My eyes sparkle with laughter,
Our language of love.

My hair, better behaved, all growed up
Older now. Wiser.

My heart hums, oh how content. It revels in you,
I bask in your adoration.

My mind — such mess! — grows ever thankful
You inhabit my life.

You make me feel beautiful.
Therefore, it must be so.

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Shy skeletons never cross
busy highways come midnight
with the prospect of corn mush
for breakfast,
soft-boiled eggs
neatly tucked inside
crisp linen napkins,
finely pressed
with razor-thin creases —
no kitchen messes,
no slop to mop up,
no vittles to fetch
or firewood to stack
in the far reaches
of bitter cold corners
of widowed shelters
run haphazard
and crosswise
every blasted December.

Eerie lights
shine in
many a mysterious
manner,
regardless of your philosophy
or take on life.

And that’s a fact.

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I want guacamole and refried beans
    left off my dinner plate

I prefer Special K
    in every scotcheroo

Silk stockings
    must drape across my candled nightstand

I want 400 rpms revving
    my engine’s manifold come daybreak

Henceforth, spider stew
    shall be leached from my intestines

I’d love to see gauzy halos
    atop every world

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Suncatchers blind commuters on the sour streets of New Haven
as frogs croak wildly at 2 AM

Nylons slither down my scrawny legs
in obeisance to gravity

Mother’s glasses sit askew on her aquiline nose
after too many Mai Tai’s in the pre-dawn light

And you wonder why the mechanisms of Wall Street
interest me not in the least?

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Love proffers shelter
in the exquisite softness
of December’s lingering light
while fading footsteps,
metaphors for loss,
disengage from the artifice of angst —
harsh truths capsized
amid heaving hearts —
as amore
once strident and intent
cries out,
brilliant and courageous,
I am with you still.

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Christmas. Just one week away.

How much a non-day event this becomes the older I get. Not a NON-day actually. Every 24-hour cycle is, technically, a day.

What I should have said is what an ANY day Christmas has turned into over the years. “Special” only because our society and our culture and our religious norms and the calendar itself say it’s so. The requisite time spent with family during the holidays – images of jolly laughter, yuletide carols, warmth and comradery – feels forced, somehow. Contrived. In reality, this time of year is often more stressful and chaotic than it is calming and cleansing. Expectations are high, emboldened by the trappings of social media, for a glitzy, candle-shrouded, Hallmark Cards experience to rival anything Hollywood could muster up on the big screen. We’re bombarded with photographs and images, tweets and postings positively dripping with hygge-inspired loveliness that render our drab, ordinary lives pathetic by comparison.

Here’s an idea. What say we treat every day as special, each day a Christmas? Loving one another, treasuring the earth, showing kindness, embracing gratitude every 24-hour cycle. And for good measure – and for sanity’s sake for ALL of us – let’s shrug off what we think and believe others are doing and how others are living their lives and just focus on what makes US happy for a change?

Now that would be cause for celebration.