Songs of Christmas Lights and Night Sky
by Lana Hechtman Ayers

School out for Christmas vacation, I wanted to die
over the lie I’d mistaken for love, the break-up before
the holiday, he’d said, so he wouldn’t have to give me a gift.

Fool that I was, I’d already gifted him my virginity,
not realizing I was part of his fraternity bet–
who could bed the most high school girls.

I wondered about potential poisons, cleaning
concoctions, overdosing on baby aspirin,
but mostly I moped around the house, sick of myself.

I didn’t want to go out, not even to see freshly fallen
pure snow I so adored.
How could I go on?

My best friend called, proposed we walk the neighborhood
to take in the numerous light displays but I refused,
saying I had a migraine.

I hadn’t confessed anything to anyone, not even her,
about being duped and dumped, but she knew me too well
and showed up an hour later on my doorstep.

Arm in arm, she and I strolled into the crisp night,
our breaths creating angels that rose heavenward
as we exclaimed over the beauty of bright blinking lights.

Pure white was my favorite, traditional green and red strands,
hers, as we two Jewish girls belted off key “Santa Claus
Is Coming to Town,” “Deck the Halls,” “Joy to the World.”

We crunched our way over snow-crusted sidewalks
and I talked about my idiocy, tears hot on my freezing face.
You are not broken, you'll get over this, she reassured me.

By the end of our four-mile trek we were laughing and
crying, singing “Silent Night,” hardly noticing the cold at all.
Holding hands, we told each other goodbye outside my house

then shared a hug that felt more like love than anything
that passed between that college boy and me.
After watching her skip down the block toward her home,

I gazed up at the fortune of stars in the clear glassine sky,
an Ave Maria chorus that hummed everywhere in my blood with
the formidable thrum of friendship and the ecstasy of being alive.



 

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