By Juliana Gray

We didn’t bother to hang the stockings, tinsel
a tree. Hard spangles of frost convert

my windshield to cathedral glass. I scrape 
the false god. When my mother hugs me, I hold 

my breath. A week into the new year, 
her husband, frayed as a stripped wire, will tell her

he can’t take care of her anymore, and she’ll threaten
to kill herself. Now, she waves goodbye

from the yawning door, calling I love my girl! 
because her tongue cannot recall my name.


~~~

Juliana Gray’s third poetry collection is Honeymoon Palsy (Measure Press 2017).  Recent poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, SWWIM, and elsewhere. An Alabama native, she lives in western New York and teaches at Alfred University.