Christmas Poem

Collapsed, she can't subscribe,
as she falls, pales and clots. We watch as she turns terrible.
Then that awful angel stays up all night eating shortbread;
waiting on the Boogeyman,
waiting on Santa Claus,
either or both, she says one is as likely as the other.

Each cancels out the other,
she says. To this theory I cannot subscribe,
not even for (just barely keeping his eyes open) Santa Claus.
Go back to Winter and bleed. Dawn comes, cold and blue and terrible;
bring on the newspaper's nightmares, bring on the daytime TV Boogeyman,
with angels we eat maple shortbread.

Let's say it's because there is nothing but shortbread,
let us say the author of the collapse is always going to be the other.
I'll have a decaf double latte over Baghdad, says the Boogeyman.
Tell them we will not subscribe.
(This life is no one's life.) Tell them we are terrible.
Say it's because there is no Santa Claus.

No one can see the structure here but Santa Claus
and all he's got this year is pale, bloody shortbread.
Dawn comes and the blood clumps inside her like tree branches, terrible
twisting with both fists and reaching towards the sky. There are other
ways to reach, new ways to describe, old ways to subscribe
to this pale internal piracy. Blame it on the Boogey(man)

because he lacks branches. That's right, there is no structure to the Boogeyman,
no blood/bone/skeleton, he is a fearful jelly. Santa Claus
on the other hand, is all thick trunk and total subscription
clustered like knuckles, balling and releasing, in snow-bright blue dawn. Shortbread
eating all year round (this life is no one's life) in the other
place, the Tropic of Terror.

There is nothing so terrible
about the Boogeyman
in fact, it's just another way of saying Santa Claus.
Pass the shortbread
back to Winter, reject both the heat and the cold, in Spring we shall subscribe.

Collapse the blue and terrible (just barely keeping his eyes open) Santa Claus,
give the Boogeyman his pale gift of shortbread,
meanwhile, the tree branches beseech the other in the sky, the snow tells us to subscribe.