After Epiphany

After Epiphany

After Epiphany,
Your ornaments I pick off
  By their thin hooks one by one,
Fingering each delicate heirloom,
Hanging several on one pinky,
  Then I place them in their boxes,
Some in ice tray like partitions,
Some I rewrap in their twenty year old
  Bounty towels,

Next, from the floor under you
I pick up my new Christmas socks,
  Shaking your fallen needles to the floor,
Between your branches, with a loom shuttle hand
I unstring your lights, my other hand
  Holding their loops kindy with the wires natural coil

Epiphaney, has come,
Epiphaney, has gone,
  It took its time,
Now we move on

We named you Fred,
We loved you Fred
  Now out you go
Before you’re dead,
  And anyway
The DPW stops collecting trees
  Before MLK day

Outside, I stand you by the curbside
In the high piled snow plow snow,
  You look as if you’d always grown there,
Vibrant, lively, without care,
  But for what your fallen needles give away 

And the next morning,
In lieu of our usual alarm clock, comes
  The buzz of the DPW chipper,
“Bow-woa woa woa-
  Buh-whazzit!”

Good bye Fred,
And when we arise,
  Hello empty sunny space in the living room