Empty apartment,
Winter’s cold creeping through the old windows.
Shadows stain the white walls
like phantom caricatures of demonic company.
Ashtrays filled, scattered dishware,
drinks unfinished with wet, half-consumed cigarettes floating in them.

He threw his coat on and left through the front door.
The hallway of the apartment was chilled, quiet.
When he stepped outside,
the sidewalk was buried beneath a couple of inches of snow.
Crevices of footprints from earlier in the day could still be seen,
yet were disappearing beneath the new accumulation softly falling from the sky.
Is this what he raced home to find?
Is this what he left the celebration of his family for?

The silent streets seemed hollow, ruinous,
as if a plague had suffocated the city.
Traffic lights on the boulevard
still blinking through their color rotations
yet not a single car is on the road tonight.
Its Christmas Eve, most people have somewhere to be
and are settled in for the night.

When the bars close at 1:00 am,
the tramps will disperse, the sinners, the blasphemous,
The black sheep and their junkie lovers.
She couldn’t wait for me?
There’s still a couple of hours left before the last call.
Where is she?