Ginger Snaps

I remember Ginger brought us,
on New Year’s Eve 1980,
the Vermonters:

“lunch on you, keep the hand and suck this bony one”

you filled the point with wire and spine
button Night into Line

from a short not-quite five-year old girl
open to you and smiling on the doorstep

bearing a red cloth look
against the snowflakes falling

you delighted the look ready for
our do-come-in

We take our time warm up for the dancing, eyeing the coats, boots, scarves

four to six bricks, red flakes
the kids catch on their tongues

pleasure on a holiday night, the performance,
the concrete walls the joy the children

They call out, appear to flag,
They rally, and we descend

underground to feast
Everyone has two slices of little ones

We toast the New Year one last time.
The year opens to the girls in velvet

We could still hear their titters
where we sat Hungry from the search

The children grow
One of them sprouts in our back yard,

a farewell designed to be memorable
and for a new life in the desert

“I will probably write an hour a day and spend eight hours a day biting my knuckle and worrying about not writing.”

— David Foster Wallace