I’m standing before the faux-wood paneling
of our $69-a-night Christmas suite
attempting not to feel cold
in the most frozen part of Colorado.
It’s Christmas morning; you’ve been taking
long naps, unable to avoid your sadness
at the hardened world, our stained yellow carpet,
the placid Navy-Marine Corps posters
adhered to the walls in 10¢ metal frames.
You are avoiding yourself
again
while I face the comedic faux-wood, and
paint my hopeful, pregnant girl.
Her hair, like mine, refuses to fall in a pattern.
Her maroon eyes look willing, like an innocent alien
come upon a fresh mesosphere.
Her white mini-dress expands uncannily
around her global belly;
I want her to be happy.
Your simple Zen Christmas card, which you
penned slowly this morning in India ink,
on expensive, pulpy water color paper,
Reads: Frozen Lake, Uncommon Love
followed by a hopeful, skinny heart,
predicting our circumstance like a gravestone.
While you sleep, I wash yellow paint
along the round curve of my belly
as if nothing will fall apart
or crack into unmanageable shards.
I smile all the way up to my cheeks, and
dip my synthetic brush into a soft bowl of alizarin crimson.
Last night, we watched The Piano, and held each other,
moved by elemental love in the sweat of the tropics,
and by the wine
and the warm familiar of our bodies’ shared inscape.
Stroke after stroke, I slide my brush on the dry, white canvas,
washing my background red—
It’s my turn now; I get to believe fiercely
in the slow waning hum
of our marooning swan-song.