No Strings Attached

Christmas was the perfect time to murder you---

I would invite you over for egg nog and sugar snaps,

and songs that would be repeated in a drunken stupor

and too many people would be spiking the punch

none the wiser of the other---

You were up to your old tricks again

that's what they say about dogs like you

and I knew about Waikiki

and I didn't like it---

not one bit

But on the 24th, Christmas Eve---

I saw you pull up in a Studebaker in my crowded little driveway

Through a sea of people in my living room

and in sepia

is how I imagined I would remember this---

you walked under the palm trees

but I could see the cold breath from your lips

Dodie Stevens was singing about a Merry Christmas, Baby---

and I wiped away the tears when I measured the teaspoons of arsenic

I didn't want it to be this way---

but you understand, don't you?

I just thought that this year, I could make you my mistletoe---

and with the white twinkle lights,

I would string you up by your conscience---

And when they turned around

and sobered up from off the floor,

I'd be slow dancing with your legs

and we'd be the deathly window display they had always feared

Jealousy was a good color on me---

and as it turns out for you

---red