After Christmas--By Marianne Szlyk--United States

After Christmas

Late-risers’ strings of lights
wink white and red

at the empty boxes
wrapped in foil.

The wire reindeer
topples in the wind.
 

One flake drifts past
a waxy magnolia tree.

Let it snow.

(Previously published by Ishaan Literary Review)

Marianne Szlyk is the editor of The Song Is... , an associate poetry editor at Potomac Review, and a professor of English at Montgomery College. Her second chapbook, I Dream of Empathy, was published by Flutter Press. Her poems have appeared in a variety of online and print venues, including Silver Birch Press, Cactifur, Of/with, bird's thumb, Truck, Algebra of Owls, The Blue Mountain Review, and Yellow Chair Review. Her first chapbook is available (for free) through Kind of a Hurricane Press: http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2014/10/listening-to-electric-cambodia-looking.html