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,

 

and yet they try not to bother me,

allowing me to go about the business

of nighttime in the house we uneasily share.

 

Snow Day 

 

The beauty of it was waking
to the dim light of a January morning,
muffled as though through cotton wool,
realizing the necessity of leaving
the next of blankets was void.
 
The beauty of it was having
all obligation to change
out of flannel pajamas tossed aside:
suddenly, no reason at all to leave
the warm cocoon of the house.
 
The beauty of it was knowing
that as cold and blustery
as the wind down the mountain might be,
it would rattle windows in vain,
shriek wildly without effect,
for the fire burning brightly
at this hearth has fuel enough—
gathered in sweet evenings months ago--
to last until spring comes creeping back.