A red bow

Christmas eve is cold because we are arm in arm, and our clattering bones keep the rhythm for carolers, cheeks red with flask-joy and snow-burn. Our skin is alien to the skin of the infant us; we have left their tiny cells across the paths we took to abandon them [except in our shadows that rise suddenly from a streetlight's glow cast on bricks / the streetlight pole tied with a red bow]. New snow will cover our tracks, and Jupiter will fall into the moon, swirling endlessly swirling. My dear may I have this dance?{there are embers now behind the fire screen.} Cold reaching into our spines, tossing our heads back in chill, and the chilling vibrancy of your dimming skin <like ice lakes in twilight>. My dear, we are the night's pinprick sequin stars on Christmas eve. Too cold to still our bodies among the voices.