CHOCOLATE SNOWMAN

Bleak winds howl at brickwork,
you curl with mulled wine, imagine
me as an old man in red disguise,
a candyfloss, elasticated beard.
I should rise up and begin rituals
because it’s 4pm and almost dark.

Last year Santa brought you a bottle
of single malt; snug leather gloves,
but all I got was a chocolate snowman
and the conviction I prefer the past,
when unimaginable as an old man,
and presents materialised at daybreak.

John Short lives near Liverpool again after a previous life in southern Europe. He has appeared in many magazines over the last fifteen years, most recently Fragmented Voices, Morphrog, and The Galway Review. His fourth collection is In Search of a Subject (Cerasus Poetry, 2023).