They're winking at me
and it's disquieting

Colors not found anywhere in nature
Manufactured for mass consumption in Guatemala
or somewhere
Tiny little fingers fitting fuses to colored glass
to wires of a deceptive, once a year kind of color
Boxed and garlanded and shipped by the thousands,
Hell bent on electrification

An angel's glowing pedestal, frosted and twinkling
and wreathed in snow-drenched memories of
model trains and unwearable sweaters.

Plastic, reconfigured and redefined and
pine-from-a-can scented.

It's broken, somehow,
The half-conscious view from
underneath a Christmas tree