Ray Rasmussen

Christmas Eve

I've not hung the decorations this year—my daughters are visiting their mother, my lover resides in another city and the dogs want me to fill food bowls, not stockings.

There's yet another email from a colleague about how we, his friends, have conspired to betray him. He closes with, "You stabbed me in the back. Enjoy the coal in your stocking."

So there it is hanging from the mantle, an imaginary stocking empty but for a lump of coal representing an imagined slight.

winter flurries
how quickly the sun slips
into night