Almost January

The mall Santa smelled of candy cane schnapps

and wore a button that said Support the Troops

with three dollar signs to indicate that should they

tip him extra, they would indeed be sponsoring

a past war’s lingering traumas. The elephant

in the room was that the strip mall was all but empty

of stores. The management didn’t hire a plowing company

and by this time of year even the hardiest or foolest

drivers flinched when challenged with the lot’s

compounded ice. Santa swilled more elixir and replaced

the flask in his well-worn cowboy boot. He’d really wanted

to talk to someone about his boots today. He had invented

a whole backstory about the sleigh crashing in El Paso.

He was going to talk about his dog, even though ‘Santa’

didn’t have a dog normally, this one used to.