December, the Unfinished

by Lexa Hillyer

Your icicles’ seduction slants sweet, my Darling—

but like the ringtone of an undialed call, something lingers
off-key beneath the season’s jingle, almost

imperceptible. Flitting over blasted slush,
days dart away—deceptive sparrows. Their scent:

snow. Hard breath on the window:
white. Wet. Vanishing. 

A lone horn wails in a dark barroom.

These are the conditions to which you are born:
a babe in a red-lit local dive, sweat, pulse, 

silk-fine. Radiator’s ribbon of steam
and longing: held fire. This is transmutation,

I’m almost sure: wonder and night; the waa waa
and the oooo wa; stars and their imperfect light.

About the Poet
Lexa Hillyer received her MFA in poetry from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. She has won the Inaugural Poetry Prize from Tusculum Review and the First Prize in Poetry from Brick & Mortar Review. Lexa edited at Harper Collins and Penguin, and is now co-founder at Paper Lantern Lit.