# December and Everything After
**by simone j. banks**

You are in the savor of night’s tempted mouth
open for swallowing dreams

for I may not survive this wave
any more than you have already swum

but I am calling out –
moon, may you release morning?

light’s favor is what I need
for tonight, is the end – the dead end
I have been waiting for

and you,
I call you december
for you are too winter to refuse
and everything has already crystallized.

you were the never-ending story I’d call out to
for tales told/retold faintly true
but my mercy has run dry –

in the morning I expect a clear sky
the sun is waiting
for me and
rising for everything after you

is this the game of surrender?

if it is, then I am the white rose you once held
in soft hands, and now
an incomplete unfolding.

Sometimes
I feel you
crawl close
to look for me in hibernation,

but I will not tempt night
anymore
or you.