Mistaking him for her brother,
he cuts off
thirty years.

Realization

An old woman,
too plump to be pretty,
my lipstick travels outside
the lines.

A Christmas Poem

In the bleak midwinter
the Christ Child again
asks to enter into our hearts
and melt the ice that insists
on forming there
against our better judgment --
our attempts at thawing
only serving to set it afire
in a soul-consuming explosion--
our attempts at cooling
turning it once again
to ice.