Three Words in December

December leans against the window glass, the kettle breathing low, and the same three words arrive again the way they always go — soft, unannounced, and true, the ones I never lose.

The street pulls on its quiet coat of light, and every window hums a little gold. I count the hours the way I count the stairs, one at a time, the railing cold. There's a chair I leave a little room beside, a cup I fill without a thought, and a song comes on the radio near midnight and finishes what I forgot. Je, I don't need the snow to start remembering, the season does it on its own. It carries you across the kitchen table, so I am never here alone.

I think of you, I think of you, when the lights go up and the year is through. Je, wherever you wake, the door stays wide — I think of you, so you're inside.

Somewhere your evening runs an hour behind, the same sky, only later on. I picture you laughing at something small, the way you do when the day is gone. Nobody taught us how to hold a distance, we learned it standing up, in coats. So I keep the porch light burning past its hour and send these three words out like boats. I think of you through traffic and through rain, through Tuesdays with nothing to say. The tinsel comes and goes, the years go quicker, but that line never goes away.

If the room is loud, I still hear you, if the road is long, I'm still near. That's the trick we learned by heart: a name can carry through the year. I'm not asking for the snow, or bells, or anything to prove. Just let the phone light up tonight and hear how little I have moved. Je, the words are old and plain, and still they say the whole of it.

I think of you, I think of you, when the lights go up and the year is through. Je, wherever you wake, the door stays wide — I think of you, so you're inside.

The lights go down, the street turns blue, the last door closes on the year. No wrapping paper on this one — just a voice that says I'm here. Wherever the morning finds you standing, however far the miles run through, hold this like a coat around you: Je, tonight, I think of you.