Streetlight Saints of the Leftover Snow [Wreath]
Streetlights hang over the block like tired saints in cheap gold halos, buzzing and humming above the frozen trash and tired brick,
Pouring syrupy light across snowbanks that stopped being pretty three storms ago, all slush-striped and gravel-freckled, scarred and thick.
Some kid’s lost mitten sticks out of the drift like a small red warning flag, stiff with ice and half-buried beside a crushed plastic cup,
Next to it, a torn strip of wrapping paper clings to the mound like the last drunk guest on the couch who refuses to get up.
The big calendar dates are gone now, emptied out like liquor bottles behind the bar,
Santa has clocked out, reindeer are on unpaid leave, the fireworks smoke has drifted off to wherever regrets are.
The inflatable snowman down the street lies face-down in someone’s yard, deflated, folded into himself like a hungover clown,
His carrot nose skewed sideways, one plastic coal eye staring at nothing, waiting for someone to care enough to unplug him, roll him down.
The air still smells faintly of pine and stale party snacks, cinnamon ghosts mixed with exhaust and cold metal,
You can almost hear the echo of out-of-tune carols and drunken toasts, distant and muffled, like they’re trapped under the asphalt, trying to settle.
Now all that’s left is the crunch of boots through crusted ruts, the little skid when the sidewalk turns into a surprise rink,
And that hollow sound your thoughts make bouncing off the inside of your skull while you try not to think.
You pass a tree on the curb, stripped naked but for one stubborn strand of lights someone forgot to pull,
They still blink in a tired pattern in the bitter air, plugged into a bent outdoor socket, loyal and dull.
An ornament line marks where the branches used to carry weight: tiny wounds where hooks once dug in,
Like the neck of an old guitar that still remembers every song even after the strings wear thin.
Under one streetlight, the snowbank looks almost holy from a distance, glowing like sugar piled high in a crystal bowl,
Step closer and it’s grit and tire dust, yellow stains, cigarette butts, footprints and dog prints, the whole ugly patrol.
Funny how everything looks cleaner from across the street, from last month’s calendar, from five Christmases ago,
The closer you lean in to the magic, the more you see the coffee rings, the dirty dishes, the price tags dangling from the bow.
You stop where the sidewalk narrows between two banks, a little canyon of ice and sand,
Streetlight pouring down like cheap stage lighting on a half-frozen rubber band of land.
The snow is tattooed here with lives that passed: heel marks from that one ugly fight, skid marks from a midnight dash,
The drag trail where a cheap artificial tree was pulled out by its trunk, shedding tinsel like it had one last rash.
Your phone buzzes with one more “We should hang out this year” from someone who never will,
One more “We should do better, right?” tossed like confetti with no plan, just guilt and a refill.
You stare at the text bubble until the cold numbs your fingers through your gloves,
Then slide the phone away, let the draft of the night erase the promise nobody truly shoves.
On the corner, the corner store window is half-changed over, holidays fading into bland routine,
Half-price candy canes slumped in a plastic bucket next to heart-shaped chocolates arriving too early on the scene.
A paper sign in the glass says “Seasonal Clearance” in fading red, hanging crooked with one strip of tape left to cling,
Like it’s trying to convince the street that you can mark down time itself, slap a sale tag on a feeling, call it a spring thing.
You think of the whole month as one long party that someone forgot to officially end,
Guests filtering out in coats and silence, carrying leftovers in cracked plastic bowls they never intend to return, just borrow and bend.
Now it’s the part where the host stands alone in the kitchen at one in the morning, hands in dishwater gone lukewarm and gray,
Listening to the clink of bottles in the recycling bag, hearing echoes of laughter fade down the hallway.
These snowbanks are what’s left on the emotional carpet when the tree is gone,
Little crusted piles of wrapping-paper hangover, half-finished plans, and every “I’ll change after New Year’s” you never quite laid hands on.
Boot prints crisscross like the scribbles in that planner you bought with every intention of becoming better,
Now filled with abandoned resolutions and grocery lists, coffee stains turning each noble line into a broken letter.
The streetlights keep shining anyway, dumb and loyal, painting halos on dirty ice,
They don’t care if the season is over, if you’re happy, if you blew it again; they just burn, simple and precise.
They shine on the couple arguing near the bus stop, on the old man hauling his trash down the icy steps one bag at a time,
On the kid stomping puddles in hand-me-down boots, lifting splashes into the light like he’s baptizing the grime.
Somewhere, two ornaments clink together in a box in the hallway closet,
A cracked one repaired with glue, a cheap one from a dollar rack, both carrying fingerprints of someone you’re trying not to audit.
A piece of tinsel rides the wind, caught in the eddy between passing cars, flashes under the lamp like a fallen meteor made of foil,
Then vanishes into the snowbank, swallowed by the season’s slow boil.
You stand there, hands in your pockets, breath climbing up past your face in steady white waves,
Thinking of all the years that walked this same block with different shoes, different hurts, different saves.
Streetlights glowed over every version of you that trudged through this salted tunnel,
The one who still believed in a big reset, the one who was sure love would fix it, the one who went numb and called that normal.
The traffic light shifts from red to green, bleeding color over the white ridges,
A car rolls through, smears exhaust across the night, turns your reflection into a set of moving smudges.
You take a step, hear that satisfying crunch where the crust breaks and your heel sinks down,
And it feels like walking through the last shallow layer of December, finally grinding it into the ground.
Maybe magic never leaves; it just takes off the costume and sits on the curb in a hoodie,
Watching you stomp around in the leftovers, wondering when you’ll notice that the miracle was never the date, just the way someone held your hand and called you “good enough,” slow and steady.
You walk on, down the block of tired saints and wounded snow,
Carrying all the seasons you ever had inside your coat, letting one more one slip away while the sodium light keeps its eternal show.