This winter morning between seven and eight,
half a white moon still present, a ghost not shining
on plentiful frost and mid-January,
in the weeks when Christmas might as well be
a lifetime ago, distant as dreams or fate;
when journalists shore up columns by defining
all the factors converging annually
to load some blue Monday with the most misery.

And waiting on the landing a fortnight too long
decorations, boxes of lights, bauble heirlooms,
time-travellers tissue wrapped to be put aside,
a loft storage act of faith that all will abide
another year, one more Christmas, our rooms
blessed with what’s known, fresh each time like a song,

or the moon showing and hiding its changing face
day and night in the same old, brand new place.