Dead, Morose

It isn't like me, is it? To be so dead morose.
Christmastime is coming and I feel
grayer than the clouds and
poorer than the naked trees. I know
I should be laughing, or watching
ice forming in broken sheets over
shipwrecked maple leaves.

But I feel dead morose. Little Soviet
Comrade Claus come down the chimney
with a bag of dry bread and powdered
milk for the children's collective good.
I put paid to that idea, to Father Frost
biting our noses and stealing our sleep.
There's coal in the furnace and blankets on the beds.

Dead, morose. Unenergetic, anhedonic.
Gotta get a gin and tonic. The helium's
spent and the balloon - little Santa crashing
to earth - is sagging on its string.
Not even the road is inviting, and the lake
doesn't know whether to stay liquid or freeze.
Neither do I.