This Time

Requiescat in pace OFH 12.16.2014

This time I drive down December darkness eastward

pursuing the headlights’ path toward where she

summoned me on this too-hasty sojourn not

by celestial portent but by cell phone

no star illumining the horizon but

a cat’s-eye moon peeking coolly

from behind slit-lidded clouds

suspicious of my reasons

for I seek no manger

but a deathbed

no beginning

but an end.

I bear no gifts.

I am not wise.

I was a son

and he a father

now we

are neither

and Herod

wins.

This time.