
g r a v e l
A L I T E R A R Y J O U R N A L
Anne Britting Oleson

Elegy for a Christmas That Never Was
At six I lie awake,
staring at the imprint
of the stoplight
through the bedroom window,
there, then gone,
red, then the deep grey
of the predawn.
Hundreds of miles away,
surrounded by people
who haven’t thought of me
in years--and why should they?--
you too are awake
in my imagination,
standing outside the back door
of a house I’ve never seen,
watching the curls of smoke
from your lonely cigarette
lift into the icy early morning,
long before anyone else stirs,
holding an awkward communion
with night and longing
in the cold turning
of yet another year
without me.
Ghosts at the Edge of Sleep
They are trying not to interrupt my sleep,
the old occupants of the older house,
stepping lightly on the stairs.
One at a time they open doors,
cross ill-fitting floorboards, close
things up again behind.
All this I hear on the edges
of waking, not quite a dream:
I know why they don’t leave me alone,