The Ghost of the Year Past

In a dark wood, she stood

in a circle of yews,

each one knotted with red thread,

lest we forget.

On each tree, a rune, a foreboding.

We’d passed this way before.

To me, she looked like a corpse bride,

her face masked with her own hand,

unable to tell the story of

2020.

In her other hand she held a bouquet

of white Christmas roses.

As I watched, she grew blue with cold.

The sky opened, until she was veiled in snowflakes,

each crystal, each cross-stich and half-stich as fine as lace.

Every snowflake unique, over 70,000 now.

The look she gave me chilled me to the bone.

She tossed her bouquet into the New Year

and I caught it, its thorns needles of ice,

drawing blood.

I couldn’t follow her. When she left

her tracks were lost to the blizzard.

I sniffed the roses and they were still as sweet.

Turning away, I found a new path.

Sandra Ireland, 2021