December Poem

The last few days of the old year
are the most static by far.
Slow mold growing
on old meat; hard, stale things
days before the taking-out.

Nights before the new year:
gameshow re-runs and
falling asleep in my jeans
around seven. Waking in the dark, then
whole days of left-overs.

After dinner on
the twenty-sixth, we wound
each music-making thing in the house
at the same time.

Tens of simultaneous dings
rang together: notes
lonely themselves,
cacaphonous at once.

The last one left playing
Greensleeves, sole and eerie,
unwinding slow, stopping just
before the finish.