December

Six months ago
the northern hemisphere
began its darkening.

There are some who say
it is darkest before dawn.

Last week, when somebody in her
6th period science class asked why
she didn’t just ask her parents
for an iPod, Josie Storm cried.
She later told her teacher,
“I hate Christmas. I have three sisters
and my dad died last year. We don’t have
any money.”

Mrs. Estes down the hall
is kicking her husband out
when he returns from the hospital
because he’s lied to her for
15 years about everything
(you don’t want to know).

At age 23, Miss Penny Porter’s
30 something fiancée is happiest
when receiving her constant
adoration. Demanding her time,
his controlling cascades into
suffocating suckiness. He becomes
tyrannical. Counseled to kick him
the fuck away, she doesn’t know
what she will do. She cries until
no tears remain.

It is darkest before dawn.
Punctuating bitter cold,
occasional chinook winds
dissolve snow in sloppy slush
that freezes again into lumps of ice
in the road. Slippery lines of
bouldered mountains manipulate
car’s unresponsive tires.
For brief moments
drivers experience the panic
of falling through life— that place
where Penny Porter, Mrs. Estes,
and Josie Storm are stuck.

In December coyote is howling
palpable pain through the air.
A trail of blood marks the path
where his foot sits in steel clamped jaws.
It is darkest before dawn.
Cold seals raw wound as his mother
tilts toward Daystar, beginning
to light coyote’s way home through
winter’s cold canyons. He learns
to navigate life on three legs
one awkward step at a time.


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Check out Sunday Scribblings for creative explorations of "December."