Unwanted Gift Poem by Sonny Rainshine

It was when I drove by your house
and noticed that you had never taken down
the Christmas decorations
that I first understood what had happened to you.

It was the beginning of March
and the plastic reindeer seemed eerie,
disoriented—the bluster of winter’s last fury
had broken the neck of one
and he stood shaking his head
in disbelief and horror.

The angels on the front porch,
with hymnals open, with mouths open
all in unison, sang silent carols,
to the silent night that was
filtering in from the east.

When you didn’t answer my phone call,
I drove back and knocked on the door,
all pasted over with wind-ripped foil
depicting snowy, happy scenes.

I could see from your empty stare
that you didn’t recognize who I was
and that the world had stopped spinning
for you around mid-December,
about the time that you got the news
that he had left you.

I saw beyond you the brown-needled
spruce tree with the unopened boxes
underneath. I held you in my arms
tenderly and felt suddenly cold like the lingering
snow on the window-sills;
inadequate like the glistening tinsel
on the tree.