Poem: November 11, 2019

Trappings

I'm at my desk, late
afternoon, mid-November

and a soft piano jazz
soundtrack suggests

"White Christmas" which
I hear because just enough

of my co-workers have
gone off into the dimming

autumn light, and I am
thinking about IKEA-

all of those tiny, perfect
spaces, acres of them,

like post cards, the fantasy
of uncomplicated lives,

the pleasure of pretty things,
the replicable set-pieces

of our own future stages,
clean and unscratched,

the place where we could
lay our scenes, and soon

we will decorate the house
for the holidays and hang

boxes of glass ornaments
on our artificial trees,

and burn pine-scented
candles and fill our rooms

with thousands of sparkling
lights, and hope to see

the first white Christmas
we've had in fifteen years.