Elan Mudrow

Late, Christmas night, wandering past your home.

I see your face in the window, warm, buried in your phone, your lamps glow

There’s a fuzziness about your image

The trees, their winter arms angling for musty sky, starless.

The atmosphere’s full of their limbs, in your yard and everyone else’s,

black against the city’s sky, a silent collage

My hands wear soft gloves, wool, cotton, and oil, stretch to fit

move in the new climate’s coolness, a different kind of clear.

I’ve forgotten how many times I’ve touched bark, I take off one glove to text someone.

My boots can’t walk quietly through all these streets, so much pavement

as if we’re knocking down mountains exchanging them for vast networks of streets.

Your home, just one of many quiet ones, mostly dark.

Car tires sound like sticky tape peeled off a rough surface,

slide like sludge past your home, carrying kids with new Christmas presents.

I see their faces through the window, warm, aglow, buried into phones.

I wave to you as I walk by. You politely wave back.

We resume texting.