40° 24' N , 3° 42' E

as I look out through my bedroom window
at the city lights' multicolored glow
tinkling like Christmas lights smiling at me
but they are not that. they are other things.
MacDonalds sign, red hospital crescent

lights of the crane over the apartment
decorating all the highway networks
perched mistletoe on the construction work
cranes like candy canes, neon holy light?
the glow trespasses on the silent night.

Bethlehem some hundreds of miles away
Falluja-closer-in the other way
and here is where the tides forgot to come
a place that loses itself to become-
the most desolate of my Decembers.