Christmas Whenever

Snow sprays off crow wings. Flurries drift like torn lace curtains over the blacktop. The porch rocking chair is draped like a madhouse ghost. Nobody is going anywhere, the side-roads are getting narrower as cold pinches wind-swirled surfaces. Every bare tree is festooned with a year-old loneliness. There are Christmas lights coming, and the canned music of tone-deaf elves – perhaps. We may gather together at the holy font of former years but only if time moves on away from this day, only if the highways are not clogged by lost days and their dead-eyed nights…maybe, maybe there will be carols and good cheer, but only if the lone wolf and his gun, for a while have had enough fun.