Sort of Thing You Have to Do Alone

Through the forest
of the city’s un-bought
Christmas trees
I forge my way: quiet –
on the private venture

and adventure
of discovering what
Christmas eve
and Christmas day
and night might be

if I bequeath them
utterly to every other
member of New York’s
constituency – that is,
everyone but me.

Cool late moonless
Winter Emperor
of Afternoon now glows:
as if he knows
an intimacy no one

merely human knows.
Tonight perhaps I’ll get
a peek behind his throne.
Sort of thing you
have to do alone.

.