Merry Christmas, Janus
Joshua Wright

A bit of blood gets crusty around cocaine nostrils.
Church bells ring.
Morning light pours through the window—
gold further flooding already golden beer.
Sing the song—
our savior is born today.

On this day out of time trains and planes arrive and leave.
Stations and ports buzz electrically with currents of people.
Their dress and bags are like histories unto themselves,
with pockets carrying gray mysteries deeper than the cloth.

Behind the winter busyness,
in the ebbing stillness of a room,
he stands,
serious and naked
but for the argyle socks that sag around his ankles.
And on the bed,
she lies,
naked and serious,
but for the way her pinky finger plays upon the frilly pillows.

When the planets plod along,
and the room where two had lain is empty,
Christmas trees
lie among the garbage bags
piled on the sidewalks.
The grey air of the day is rich with a piney scent.
A new calendar sags
from a little nail in the wall—

A truck will come
soon to take
the dry trees away.

Joshua C. Wright is a writer and adjunct lecturer at CUNY. His work has appeared most recently in Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal and Neophilolgus.