Rae Spencer

Whoa, December, wait one minute
I’ve hardly roused from my feasted slumber
When you start to number my days

Set clocks and worry flocks of shoppers
Lost in evergreen lots and sticker-shock
Tick tock, sweet silver bells ring the hour

As if to hurry my step into line
My dour minuet with Father Time
Stumbling on to the end

The bitter end of another year
Another calendar page, scrawled
With duty and a glitter of waste

With things I never desired
The blouse gift-receipt, creased
In haste and taped over the size

I couldn’t accept; a final refrain
After the glaze is scraped
From cold and golden morns

And oh, December, please wait
For the lights to change, for fire
To blaze through our litter of wrappings

Pause tonight among muttering beasts
In their scatter of straw, their dusty ease
From lust’s numb ache, from labor’s strain

Rest among these flight-tired geese
Mid-route, heads tucked under folded
Wings, murmuring psalms to themselves