I’ll split the hairs, I’ll split an atom
And never leave the bedroom.
I most identify with December,
Not because of the crushing temperature
But the lack of cosmic dawdling
Is no more mesmerizing than a frozen phoenix.

And as she arrives by train from Phoenix,
I study who she appears to be, the atoms
Composing her auburn hair with dawdling
Authenticity shout “Take me to the bedroom!”
While the wedge of geese in this temperature
Head to the Southern Hemisphere’s December.

The common chill of this morning in December
Prevents us from rising from out the covers like a phoenix,
And our blankets like ash defend us from the temperature
That stills the vibrations of the atmosphere’s atoms.
I curse the insulated walls of the bedroom,
Trapping in heat and discouraging our dawdling.

A rafter of turkeys outside my window are dawdling,
Printing their runes on the documents of December
Between the thickets surrounding the bedroom
While the sun, golden like the plumage of a phoenix,
Awakens in my bones every dormant atom,
Instilling in me courage to brave the temperature.

I follow her, dressed, from the bedroom
And her footsteps serve to punctuate the temperature
Like the smoldering beak of a phoenix
Too busy being risen for dawdling.
She leaves, by train through the chill of December,
Me daydreaming of fission. The splitting of an atom.

I’ll split an atom daily, safely within the bedroom
And sleep through December’s pitiless, hollow temperature,
Waking only for dawdling until Spring is a phoenix.