The Last of December
by Joanna Grant
Disappointing, really. That’s all it ever could be,
these high days, these holy days, all those ersatz
garlands, plastic wreaths, paper crowns, special
dishes, cookie swaps, and all that molting tinsel.
Too much, too much, and never enough—us now
all mouth and no stomach, nothing but hunger,
but heartache. Such a relief, then, this interruption,
when the boxes come out, the storage bins.
Put the nativity away, its little figures back in their case,
its impressions molded to fit the three tiny Magi,
the cows and sheep, the swaddled baby himself.
Send them all back to their top closet shelves.
This, now, at long last the hour of the bare board,
the mantel stripped and dusted, the drying old needles
finally swept up from the carpets. See—the room
looks bigger already, doesn’t it? That emptiness ours
to fill how we will, clean and sharp as hoarfrost, as midwinter.
Joanna Grant holds a Ph.D. in British and American literature, specializing in fictional as well as nonfiction travel narratives of the Middle East. She spent eight years in that region, notably two years in Afghanistan, teaching writing, mythology, and public speaking classes to American soldiers and gathering materials for her own memoir, which she is currently completing as part of an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Southern New Hampshire University under the direction of Mark Sundeen. Her poetry and prose have appeared widely in journals including Guernica and Prairie Schooner.
