The lights of December

Hold a strange and dismal glow,

As the year’s few survivors

Recall the loved and lost

–

Their colorful nights

Ebb and flow into the gutters

With the late autumn rain

As their cold, grim guide

–

Warm hearts and full stomachs

Wrestle with their bitter grief,

For the busy lives quieted

On the way to winter’s embrace

–

Every trill and melody

Is haunted with the year’s ghosts,

Snarled with the rising notes

Of each drunken night’s chorus